


Death and the Maiden

by TheTiniestTortoise



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Alcohol, Brief mentions of suicide, Canon Dialogue, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Choking, Dialogue Heavy, During Canon, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Family Dynamics, Forced Baptism, Forced Tattooing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kidnapping, Knife Play, Mild Descriptions of Body Horror, Mildly Dubious Consent, No redemption arc, Officially a slow burn I guess, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Drug Use, Religious Cults, Religious Fanaticism, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Ritualistic Self-Harm, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Some lore taken from Far Cry Absolution, Unprotected Sex, allusions to torture, brief description of adrenaline injection, brief descriptions of corpse mutilation, diana curses like a sailor, drug overdose, jess and grace are too nice for their own good, mentions of drunk driving (don't do it), non-consensual bliss use, physical violence, referenced Infanticide, sibling dynamics, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:48:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 34
Words: 146,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22757290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTiniestTortoise/pseuds/TheTiniestTortoise
Summary: Deputy Diana Baker ends her very first month on the Hope County Sheriffs’ Department thrust into a war she isn’t prepared for. While trying to rescue her colleagues who’ve been abducted, she is also doggedly avoiding the influence of the doomsday cult that tries, with claws and teeth, to draw her in. The more violence she is subjected to - and willingly commits - the more she feels a long-buried monster coming to life inside her. And there is one member of Joseph Seed’s little family who is particularly keen on seeing that monster brought into the light.Tags will be updated as I go!Just a quick note - this is most likely going to get dark. Please be mindful if you're concerned about the exploration of unhealthy relationships, violence, (possible) dubious consent, possessiveness, torture, all the usual that comes with this game.
Relationships: Female Deputy/John Seed
Comments: 193
Kudos: 162





	1. Hello Miss Lonesome

**Author's Note:**

> Now we all pick our poison, we dig our own graves  
> And Jesus is accountable for every soul he saves  
> There's gold in the rivers and diamonds in the mines  
> Miss Lonesome knows the favor, let's roll those lucky dice
> 
> -Marlon Williams, Hello Miss Lonesome

A strangled gurgling permeates the otherwise empty silence of the house. It comes from a man who lies bleeding out on the area rug in the kitchen, a carbon arrow protruding like a flagpole straight up from his chest.

A slender woman, dressed dark with a green and black flannel tied around her waist, slips in through the front door. Dishwater eyes flick back and forth, ears pricked for signs of any other cultists. The radio secured at her belt crackles to life suddenly instead and nearly makes her heart leap into her throat.

 _“Oh, shit. Deputy, I’m pickin’ up somethin’ new out of Holland Valley. It’s a broadcast from John. You anywhere near a television?”_

Diana’s face contorts. She steps around the dog bed on the floor beside the couch, all but forgetting the man still slowly dying in the kitchen off to her right. One hand grips her bow almost too tightly while the other goes for the radio. She presses the talk button and turns a quick 180 to scan the living room. “Yeah,” she replies as her gaze centers on an old box set in the corner, “got one right here.” 

_“I’d suggest you turn it on,”_ Dutch’s voice comes back, cut through with static. 

She chews her lip for a moment, casting another glance around the open space before responding. A bark resounds from outside, followed by a series of low whines. There’s a dog locked up out there; presumably Boomer, star hunter and Rae-Rae’s main attraction. Aside from the pumpkins littering the fields all around the property, of course. 

“Ten-four.” She holsters the radio and makes her way around the leather couch, swivels her head one more time to check her blind spots before pressing the power button on the television and taking a step back. There is a hum of electricity before the screen flickers to life. 

It is like an evangelical infomercial, the recording that jumps up on the screen. The man she remembers catching a glimpse of in the back of Joseph’s church smiles, warm and friendly, welcoming. This is the first time she’s ever heard John Seed’s voice, and she has to grudgingly admit he looks and sounds the part of poster boy. For all that she knows these lunatics have done, he is adept at painting a pretty picture even as he traces his fingers almost lovingly across Joey Hudson’s neck. She can see it, though; the threat that’s implied. He looks right at the camera - right at Diana - when he says _they’ll be coming._

It sends a shiver up through her. She grimaces, the image of Joey’s smeared mascara and the duct tape over her mouth now firmly stamped into the junior deputy’s brain. His bullshit recruitment speech _almost_ sounded enticing, before he’d started parading around a fucking _hostage._

They didn’t deserve this; not Pratt, not Whitehorse, and certainly not her new partner. Burke probably deserved it a little bit; if not for his insistence and enormous sense of self-importance, they wouldn’t be in this fucked up situation. But the others - she needs to make an effort for them. They’ve been kind to her, a hell of a lot kinder than most. 

She’d tried getting out of Hope County first two days ago. As soon as Dutch had turned her loose from the safety of his bunker, she’d made a mad dash for the county line and found it blocked. High wire-fencing ran as far as she’d attempted to follow; breaks where the road ran through were heavily guarded by members of Joseph Seed’s fanatic militia. She didn’t know when they’d managed to put it all up, but his people had been settled in the area for a good ten years already, and it was apparent now that they had not been idle.

Dutch had prattled on to her over the radio for an hour after that about how the feds wouldn’t even touch this whole thing, anyway; it wasn’t nearly high-profile enough, and that meant it was up to them to try and help the innocent people trapped here and tear the thing down from inside. 

Diana didn’t appreciate being thrust into the position of Hope County’s one and only savior, wasn’t even sure how it had happened in the first place. Their particular piece of Montana was already chock-full of doomsday preppers and ex-military. So why her? Just because she was a cop, like that title meant anything now? Or maybe because she was an outsider; she’d only been transferred to the Sheriff's Department a month ago, and under probationary conditions at that. She hadn’t been here to witness Eden’s Gate slowly expand its influence across the entire county, engulfing both the people and the land like a plague. Just one more fucked up thing in a fucked up world, as far as she was concerned. But somehow she’d fallen - no, _crashed_ \- into the middle of it.

She snaps out of her thoughts and hastily shuts off the tv; it’s just playing the goddamned recording over again on repeat. When John Seed finally goes silent, she hears the distinct sound of tires squealing at the end of the dirt road. The barking picks up again, sharp and insistent now. She curses to herself and cranes her neck to look out the window. Rae-Rae’s is some sort of transport hub for the cult, and somebody must have noticed their communication had gone silent. 

And there are six of their very definitely dead friends scattered across the property, right in plain sight. She takes a second to think about her options before planting herself squarely in front of the window - thankfully it’s been broken out already - and reaching over her shoulder to grab another arrow from the quiver at her back. She nocks it, keeps one arm straight and firm while the other hand draws back the bowstring, shifting her gaze back up to the driveway. 

A dirty white truck careens to a screeching stop out front, kicking up a thick spray of dust in its wake. Diana wets her lips quickly, adjusts her aim toward the driver’s side. She can hear them yelling over each other now between Boomer’s frenzied barks. After the doors open and slam shut, she takes her shot. The arrow flies, embeds itself between the driver’s ribs and he crumples to the ground, trembling hands grabbing at the offending presence buried four inches into the side of his chest. 

The passenger yells in shock before starting around the hood. The cab’s back doors open and another man and a woman emerge, scrambling in panic. Diana drops the bow in favor of the pistol holstered at her thigh and takes a deep breath as she crosses the space between the window and the door before plunging outside. 

She heads for Boomer first; runs up to the cage and shoots the padlock right off the door before hauling it open and ducking around behind it. The dog shoots off like a bullet, beelines for the cultists, launches himself and tackles one of them to the ground with his teeth sunk into their throat. Diana only has a moment to stare in open-mouthed shock before a series of shots ring out and the siding of the house just behind her splinters from the impacts. A potted plant explodes off the porch railing, sending bits of ceramic and clumps of soil flying.

She ducks low and strafes across the backside of the cage, heading for a huge crate full of apples that sits about ten feet away. Popping up before crossing the distance, she quickly takes aim and unloads two rounds into the third cultist, who goes down with her finger on the trigger of a semi-auto. It unloads a spray of bullets wildly in all directions and Diana dives behind the crate, curling in on herself instinctively until the sudden onslaught is over. 

_“Fuckin’ sinner,”_ the last man shouts, loud and hateful. 

A yelp comes from the driveway and Diana clenches her jaw a little too hard at the realization the dog has probably been kicked. Right as she’s about to lurch back to her feet, a loud bang startles her and the world goes entirely gray. The flash from the detonation blinds her for a moment and she can’t help inhaling the chemicals from the smoke grenade. Her throat burns and she coughs, doubles over, has to put one hand up on the side of the crate to keep herself steady. 

Boomer is back to barking. She has no idea where he is. No idea where the fucking cultist has gotten to, either. But he’ll be able to find her just from the sound of her hacking her lungs out. She forces herself to move, trying to quell the irritation in her airways, trying to listen for footsteps coming at her. She’s made far too much noise already, and she doesn’t want to be around when another truck full of Peggies rolls in to investigate. 

Diana tries like hell to get her bearings, but the grenade took her by surprise. She almost stumbles straight into a tent pole before sidestepping it and whipping around to check back behind. A sudden blow to the back of her head sends her careening face first into the dirt, the pistol flying from her hands as she cries out in surprise. 

It feels like she’s choking on gravel now instead of whatever’s in those smoke grenades, bits of sand grinding between her teeth as she clenches her jaw and rolls over onto her back, kicking her feet out in a desperate attempt to keep the Peggie at a distance. He takes a boot to the shin and it’s enough to send him stumbling back, snarling. 

She grabs for the hunting knife she keeps at her hip and and plants the heel of her other hand against the ground to lever herself upwards and forward, adrenaline fueling her as she lunges for him and sinks the blade into his gut. Her weight is enough to knock him off his feet and she follows, pinning him on the ground. The Peggie howls in agony, his hands grabbing and clutching for anything and everything, any means of thwarting her. He’s squirming and struggling too much for her to try retrieving the knife, so she reaches back, grabs one last arrow from the quiver and impales it under his chin with all the force she can muster. 

He finally goes still, hands dropping away, eyes turning glassy. Diana straightens up, chest heaving, heavy breaths puffing errant strands of dark hair away from her face. She knows she should collect the arrows, but time is of the essence. She is beginning to learn that she can’t afford to linger in any one place for too long, or they will come. She only grabs the necessities; the hunting knife, the pistol. She leaves the bow in the house. Her goal is to make it to Fall’s End, and once she gets there, she’s hoping there will be other weapons. She’s going to need them. 

She sees Boomer out of the corner of her eye as the smoke finally starts to clear. The dog looks relatively unscathed, and she is thankful for that. He didn’t deserve any of this shit, either. He whines and stands up on his hind legs when he comes up on her, front paws flattening against her abdomen. As the adrenaline drains away, the dog’s weight is almost enough to push her over, but she steadies herself and manages to run a hand over one of his ears. His muzzle and chest are covered in Peggie blood. 

“Good boy,” she remarks breathlessly. 

She’s getting a gnarly headache from the spot that’s surely bruising on the back of her head. She reaches up to grab the sunglasses she’d had perched over the brim of her ballcap, but they aren’t there. Must have flown off in the scuffle. Turning around, she spies them some ways away, one lens popped out and shattered in the dirt. She sneers and scoffs wearily, resigning herself to having the sun in her eyes for the rest of the afternoon.

**. . . . .**

Hours later, Diana sits on a barstool in the kitchen of an abandoned house some ways southwest of Rae-Rae’s. She’s kept the lights off, only has a candle lit on the kitchen counter, upon which she leans her elbows heavily. Boomer lies on the floor by her feet, nose tucked between his front paws. He hasn’t left her side since she freed him. The ballcap sits on the counter beside her, adorned with a new pair of sunglasses she’d purloined from an end table in the entryway. 

She reaches out for the Pabst she’d found in the fridge, set on trying to drink herself to sleep. She’s bruised and battered and tired. But mostly, whenever she closes her eyes, she’s back in that helicopter, and it’s crashing, and goddamned Joseph Seed is crooning _Amazing fucking Grace_ into her ear while the world spins and fractures and crumbles down around her. 

She drains the rest of the beer and swipes the back of her hand across her mouth. Dutch had radioed in again earlier, filling her in on what John Seed was doing with all the farmland and supplies to be found in the Holland Valley. Confiscating people’s crops and personal property, bullying, _marking,_ whatever the hell that was, muscling people out of their homes and livelihoods. _Free his prisoners,_ Dutch said, _disrupt his supply lines, get to Fall’s End._ A tall order. One that makes her feel like giving up before she’s truly even started.

She thinks she should cry. She killed twelve people today. She impaled a man in the _throat_ with an _arrow._ But the knowledge only sits in her gut like a lead weight nestled in the sediment at the bottom of a lake. Still and uninterrupted. She only feels the same emptiness she always has; the same dull, disinterested spark of recognition, punctuated occasionally (more than occasionally these days) by anger.

She doesn’t even feel the need to reason with herself that they would have gladly killed her, were trying quite hard, in fact. For all she’s tried to beat back the monster that lives within her, she can at least separate its presence from the lines she’s been forced to cross just to keep herself alive. Those Peggies are not innocent, and there is no possible way in hell that they could be doing God’s work out here. 

Static suddenly fills the quiet of the kitchen as she’s lighting up a cigarette and thinking about grabbing another beer. It makes her whip her head in the direction of the radio, resting on the countertop beside her hat. Boomer’s ears perk and he angles his head up from the floor, whining low. She sets down her lighter and goes to reach for the CB, but her hand stops in midair when the voice that comes through isn’t Dutch’s.

 _“Sin is pervasive. It drives us to do unspeakable acts. I know the feelings that drive you; I know them...intimately. But I can help you, deputy. I can wash away these sins. I can cleanse your soul. It will be difficult, and it will be painful, but...it will be worth it. My people will come for you. They will bring you to me. Don’t fight it—because the harder you resist, well...the harder we’ll have to scrub your soul.”_

She stares at the radio for a few moments, brows furrowed. She wouldn’t have been able to get a word in edgewise even if she tried. It is immediately obvious that John Seed wants only to threaten and intimidate her. He isn't remotely interested in hearing what she has to say. 

So, she scoops the radio up and holds it in front of her face for a moment, gray-green eyes drifting toward the ceiling, following the smoke from her cigarette. “I’m afraid I’m not interested in having my soul scrubbed.” 

A beat of silence goes by. She takes a drag and lets the smoke cascade from her nostrils, sets the radio down and spins on the stool until she faces the fridge. She absolutely needs another beer. The CB crackles to life once more just as she reaches out to pull the door open.

 _“You should be. You murdered a dozen innocent people today, deputy. That mutt you took was intended as a gift for my brother. You are attempting to meddle in matters far beyond your limited scope of comprehension.”_

Diana frowns as she twists the cap off the fresh beer and tosses it. She picks the radio back up, presses the talk button once more. “I don’t know what you’ve done to those people, but I’m fairly fucking certain they are _not_ innocent-”

 _“Wrong,”_ he snaps back, interrupting her. _“They are doing what they must to ensure that we are prepared for what’s coming. We will not tolerate meddlers, deputy, and we are_ rapidly _approaching the proverbial event horizon. But...I am willing to create an opportunity for you. Those left behind, those..._ not _willing to atone, will not know the glory of our New Eden. I am going to offer you the chance.”_

Diana snorts and takes a long sip from the bottle. She burps roguishly and ashes the cigarette over the edge of the countertop before responding. “Listen, buddy. I said I’m not interested in your delusional end-of-the-world _bullshit,”_ she hisses back into the radio, suddenly very tired and annoyed. “You want to talk, you let the _hostages_ you took go free before this becomes a full-blown act of domestic _fucking_ terrorism. Until then, I’ll be out here playing Call of Duty with your little toy soldiers.” 

There is another generous pause before his voice cuts through again, icy and calm and unsettling. _“I’ll be seeing you soon, dep-“_

Diana switches off the radio before he can finish, chugs the rest of the second beer and fights the urge to hurl the bottle at the wall as hard as she can. _“Fucking_ lunatics.” 

She drops the butt of her cigarette down into the bottle instead and stands up, almost trips over Boomer as he scrambles to his feet to go wherever she’s headed. She hastily plants a hand against the refrigerator to steady herself and bites her tongue, only managing to sigh loudly. 

“C’mon, doofus,” she says after a moment, sidestepping the eager Heeler and making her way down the hall to find a bedroom. She’ll loot the place for supplies before she leaves in the morning. For the time being, all she wants to do is try and sleep. She even lets Boomer climb into bed with her. He helps her keep her mind off wondering who might have lived here before and what might have happened to them. 


	2. Quite Contrary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mary, Mary quite contrary  
> How'd you get your eyes so scary?  
> Lost your pocket full of posies  
> Pawned your rings and cut your roses
> 
> -Parker Millsap, Quite Contrary

She’d been _so_ stupid.

With no immediate signs of being pursued, Diana’d gotten cocky about her ability to move through the valley unimpeded. She’d also been feeling particularly petty in the aftermath of John Seed’s little late-night intimidation attempt, so she’d decided with no small amount of rancor that she was going to fuck with the Peggies as much as she could from here on out. 

She’d found a hunting rifle equipped with a silencer inside a gun safe in that house where she’d spent the night. It had been a stroke of good luck, too, because as soon as she’d turned her CB back on, Dutch had been there on the other end to chew her ass out for going radio silent. 

He’d needed her to cut a detour east to scope out another farm the cult had taken and turned into a packing-slash-transport facility. John was working hard at confiscating local farmers’ produce and getting it shipped to his siblings’ bunkers - actual fucking nuclear bomb shelter military-grade _bunkers_ \- before the summer growing season was over, and if they could disrupt his supply line, it would be a good start to showing Eden’s Gate that the community wasn’t just going to roll over and let it happen. She grudgingly agreed, because she _owed_ him, but _really_ she’d wanted to tell him it was a better idea to just keep hightailing it for Fall’s End so that she could rally whoever was holed up there and get some goddamned _help._

Her and Boomer weren’t going to take out an entire doomsday cult on their own. They did, however, manage to wipe out the small group of Peggies at Sunrise Farm. The rifle helped immensely. She had even managed to find a duffel bag full of remote explosives on the premises, no doubt belonging to Joseph’s people. She’d watched in morbid fascination as a whole ass tractor-trailer full of their supplies lurched almost four feet into the air before the sides blew out and corn and potatoes and some strange white flowers that almost looked like squash blossoms exploded _everywhere._

Diana had retreated to a safe distance and hid behind a toolshed to watch the whole thing happen, but the explosion was _loud_. Boomer’d lost his shit and started barking up a storm; for her part, she’d turned tail and ran when the vegetables and shrapnel started flying. 

Shipment disrupted, her next plan had been to scour the roadside for a vehicle she could commandeer, but she never made it quite that far. Before she’d even managed to book it fifty yards back into the woods, she’d been struck with a violent wave of lightheadedness. 

She’d had to lean herself up against a tree and force herself to take several deep breaths. Her vision had started to swim, and she’d almost lost what meager lunch she’d been able to eat earlier in the day. Boomer’d circled back around and come up on her, whining low in his throat. At one point he’d been licking her face, which seemed odd because she swore she’d been standing up just a moment before. And then, suddenly, nothing. 

  
  


**. . . . .**

She comes to just as suddenly, trying to suck in a desperate lungful of air. What she gets instead is water. Only a little goes down her airway before her body reacts violently to the offensive presence and she starts choking and spitting it back up while being hauled upwards by the shoulders of her shirt. She can just make out a familiar voice over the sound of her own ragged coughing and the water plugging up her ears, but the words are unintelligible. Her head spins. She is blinded by the headlights of a truck parked at the edge of what might be a boat launch. 

Rough hands keep her upright in the chest-deep water as she retches. She tries to see through the limp tendrils of hair hanging in her face, blinking fast. The man who holds her is bald with a thick, dark beard, and he wears the sigil of Eden’s Gate painted proudly on his chest. It almost looks like a bastardized iron cross. Given how militant they are, Joseph’s little ‘family’ probably isn’t that far from full-blown christofascism. 

“Ah, fuck,” Diana croaks, realization dawning upon her as she lets her head hang. She feels drunk. But, like, the kind of drunk where you also ate two grams of mushrooms an hour before and it occurs to you you’re not sure if you might be living in a simulation. 

The man shushes her curtly, extending an arm toward the truck on the shore with its high-beams focused directly on her burning corneas. There are silhouettes there, in the shallows near the boat launch, moving toward a lone figure—the one who’s been doing all the talking. As she starts to get pushed along in the same direction, she makes out the large white book he has open in one hand, and he’s swiping his thumb across the page before reaching up to anoint the foreheads of those who are brought forward. 

“...Only then may we stand in the light of God. And walk through his gate,” John Seed pauses for a moment, snapping the book shut as she is brought up last, narrowing his eyes at her as the others all move away. “Unto Eden.” 

He puts a hand out to stop the Peggie that’s leading her and she sways in the man’s grasp. It’s only now she realizes her wrists are zip-tied together as she struggles to reset her center of gravity on dangerously unsteady legs.

“Not this one.” John’s gaze doesn’t cut away from Diana once as he arrogantly hands the book over to the bearded cultist, simply expecting that it will be taken; and it is. 

She tries to square herself up now that she’s not being supported and sneers right back at him, stubborn and determined and too blitzed out of her mind to know that she should probably be afraid. She almost laughs when she realizes he’s got a pair of aviators perched on top of his head and it’s very clearly well past sunset. 

Even in the dark of the night, far away from the glaring fluorescent bulbs of that stupid little YES sign from his commercial, he presents as a self-assured asshole. She fixates on those sunglasses, and she isn’t a hypocrite, she thinks - even though she’d have her own shades perched on her head right now if she hadn’t lost her hat somewhere along the way - she isn’t a hypocrite because _he_ is an asshole with a fancy house somewhere where _he_ has a place to _put them down._

She doesn’t have a home anymore, not one she can get back to, anyway. What little she has now she carries with her in a knapsack that isn’t even hers; it’s just one of a long list of charities Dutch bestowed upon her before booting her out into the trenches. There is no place for her to truly rest, no place for her to feel comfortable, to throw off her coat and her hat and her shades and kick her feet up after a long day. She is coming to the realization that Hope County is a war zone, and she is _never_ safe. The thought is as terrifying as it is all-encompassing, and she hates him for it. 

John takes a half-step closer. “This one’s not clean.” 

“What-?” she half-mumbles, catching the briefest glimpse of his manicured brows pinching before he lunges and his hands are on her and her feet are out from under her and he’s _pushing her back under the water._

Her scream emerges as nothing but bubbles of air and a muted droning in her ears, dulled by the pressure of the river. She promptly has to close her mouth so as not to drown, thrashing against his grip while all the air she’d finally just managed to get leeches out of her. 

She is hauled back up almost a full minute later, gasping and dry-heaving and shivering through her teeth, and her eyes open once more to the sight of him. She grimaces and lurches in his grasp and feels his hands tighten on her shoulders. _“F-f-fuck you,”_ she gasps. 

John sighs, shakes his head, tsks and shushes her sweetly and then she recognizes the same cutting glint like the edge of a knife reflecting in his eyes. He’s about to push her under again when he is stopped by a voice from the shore. Serendipitous, that.

“Do you mock the cleansing, John?” 

Diana blinks fast again to rid the water and washed-out mascara from her eyes. She bares her teeth and breathes heavy like a wounded animal. She realizes it’s Joseph standing there on the shore, and _he’s_ wearing those stupid fucking yellow sunglasses, looking for all the world like some modern day David Koresh and she has to rein in the hysterical laugh threatening to bubble up in her throat.

John’s face changes instantaneously, minutely. He is suddenly a picture of reticence, turning and taking a step back from her. One of his hands stays on her shoulder, though, and she knows he is _angry_ by the way his fingers dig into her through the thin fabric of her shirt. It registers only as a dull ache in the back of her mind, but it is _interesting_. 

“No, Joseph-“

“Shh! You have to love them, John. Do not let your sin prevent that.” 

“Uh oh,” Diana sneers and slurs drunkenly, low and raspy but intent on crawling up under her tormentor’s skin. “Daddy’s angry.” 

John’s eyes flick back to her and they are burning and she _sees_ how tightly his jaw is clenched and she just smiles. And then she promptly lurches forward and pukes up a bitter mixture of water and bile and what little remnants of food remain in her churning stomach. 

A flicker of disgust or revulsion or something of the like makes John’s mouth tick slightly, but that is the only reaction he shows.

Joseph produces a sort of pitying hum, shakes his head and beckons a hand toward them. “Bring her to me.” 

John moves behind her and, with the same cultist flanking her other side, shoves her toward where Joseph waits with outstretched arms; and doesn’t he look every bit the loving father. Something’s off-balance though, with the ever-present gun at his hip and the stars dancing in her eyes. It’s like the world has shifted ever so slightly out of place, taken a step just to the left. Everything about him feels wrong, charged with some kind of malign energy she has no name for and no way to describe. 

He removes a handkerchief from his pocket and dabs at the corners of her mouth with a practiced gentleness that manages to give her the distinct sensation of spiders crawling all up through her empty guts. Then he tucks it away and reaches up to cradle her face in his hands and they burn her frozen skin. He looks deep into her eyes, tells her she is not beyond salvation. Tells her she is here only by the grace of God. Tells her that she has a choice to make. 

Then he releases her and steps away and his gaze crawls off of her and over to John. He puts a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, and it is fascinating how John’s eyes never meet his when they never left hers before. 

“This one shall reach the Atonement,” he says, bringing his brother in close. Their foreheads touch in a gesture that feels oddly intimate. “Or the Gates of Eden shall be shut to you, John.” 

“Yes, Joseph,” is the only thing muttered in response. 

Joseph doesn’t even spare Diana a parting glance before he turns away from them to drift back into the darkness beyond the headlights. John tracks his departure with an unreadable expression, but his eyes reflect that darkness back at her as his gaze finally shifts. He straightens his shoulders, looms, gets back up in her space when he is sure Joseph is gone.

“You _will_ confess. _Every_ sin you’ve ever committed, no matter how petty, no matter how small—I will pull from you.” He scoffs softly, eyes crinkling, but not with anything close to mirth. “Then we’ll see if you’re worthy of atonement.”

 _“Like to see you try, shithead,”_ she croaks roughly, throat raw and burning still. She bares her teeth yet again as the cultist grabs her by one elbow, yanking her backwards. 

John’s mouth ticks and he chases the step she was forced to take back, one hand striking up like a snake to grab her forcefully by the chin. His fingers dig into the soft flesh of her cheek. His glare is unwavering and sharp. 

He sneers and stares her down, eyes dipping as he rubs his thumb hard through the wet lipstick around her mouth, smearing it. “My God, would you _listen_ to the mouth on this one...if you insist on continuing to act like a _petulant child,_ just know that it will not make your atonement easier,” he hisses, enunciating his words pointedly as if he might be able to mortally wound her with only his breath. _“I’ll have to scrub out that filthy mouth of yours before we can even begin your confession.”_

Her eyes narrow and darken and she sputters something incoherent through her forcefully pursed lips. Most likely a string of curses. 

“Get her out of my sight,” John sneers and finally _pushes_ her face away. He keeps his eyes locked on her as his bearded minion drags her to shore. Diana leers over her shoulder the whole way, even as she almost trips over her own feet trying to keep pace with the man half-carrying her. 

He thinks he will enjoy breaking this ornery little junior deputy; so contrary now, but a few days without food or water will surely hasten the process. Not that he has any doubts about his own ability to persuade her toward the word of the Project. The Will of The Father Be Done, no matter what it takes. His smile returns at the thought of what lies in store, despite the tight little knot of worry winding itself into the back of his mind at his brother’s parting words. His tattooed hands flex at his sides; they have been empty too long and now they are yearning for the tools of his holy trade. 

The vehicle she’d thought was a truck is actually one of the cult’s transport vans. She’s seen a few around. Never the inside of one, though, til now. The other prisoners - because that is most definitely what they are - whisper in small voices about John’s Gate, his personal bunker, and the likelihood of their survival there. Diana tries to pay attention, but she has to try harder not to vomit again.

Something’s messed her up, they _must_ have drugged her. That doesn’t explain why she fell ill _before_ she got captured, but she can’t expend the energy thinking about that right now. She feels like her senses have been scattered to the wind, and this is the time she _needs_ her wits about her. Any and all sounds seem as if they’re coming at her through a vacuum, her vision swims and sparkles; and she can’t shake the memory of Joseph Seed’s fingers burning against her bare skin.

Diana is granted a blessed focal point to bring her attention back to matters at hand as the guard riding in the back of the van with them suddenly cracks the woman across from her on the temple with the butt of his rifle. 

“Mother _fucker,”_ she grunts, balling her fists together. This spark of anger she feels is good. Anger will keep her focused, maybe sober her up a little. Just as she is about to launch herself off the bench seat towards him, the van lurches sickeningly; brakes squeal, they swerve to the left and then harshly to the right, and then—and then she’s right back in that helicopter; or maybe she’s back in that truck with goddamned Burke, careening off the side of a bridge and far too scared to even scream. 

She hears little snippets of Joseph’s choir on the radio intermingling with the sounds of glass shattering, steel, plastic and aluminum crunching and crumpling. They all knock into each other and the benches and the sides of the van. She has just enough time to think to herself that this is a decidedly shitty way to die before her head slams particularly hard against the floor - or it might be the ceiling - and she blacks out again.

The sound of gunfire and shouting outside rouses her some minutes later. She starts with a sharp inhale, leans up and then promptly makes a strangled sound as pain flares to life everywhere her skin brushes against the floor. She is lying on a bed of broken glass. 

Diana cries out weakly as she forces herself up on one hip, trying to blink back the stinging tears welling in her eyes. “Help,” she tries to scream, but it is only a whisper; only a breath of ashes. She slams her balled-up fists against the back door, panic suddenly flaring to life within her. _“Help!”_

_"You must destroy them totally! Make no treaty with them!”_

The doors swing open and suddenly she is looking back over her shoulder - which she knows could be a deadly mistake, but she really can’t help it - as a hand wraps around her ankle and squeezes. A gunshot booms thunderously in the confined space and the guard that grabbed her recoils, a neat, bloody hole carving itself into the creases of his forehead. 

_“And show them no mercy_.” 

She gasps and whips her head back around to see...a man dressed in preacher’s black, the white at his collar a stark contrast to the moonlit darkness that hangs heavy all around them. He sports a bulletproof vest and a thick bible in one hand, though when he flips the cover open it reveals a gun safe that his pistol slides into neatly. 

He crouches and slips a knife from his waistband, reaching out to slice through the zip-ties that still bind her wrists together. 

Diana makes a grateful sound as her hands finally come apart. She takes the hand that he offers and lets the man pull her to her feet. “Who-?”

“Shh,” he replies with a small shake of his head, “just stay with me. We didn’t go through all this trouble just to lose you now.” 

They check the other two prisoners who were with her. The woman is dead, but the other, a man, is alive and well enough to be taken to safety, skittish as he is in his shock from the ordeal. As for Diana, a gun is put in her hand and she is told they have others further up the road to rescue. She is told that they need her—the resistance, as they call themselves. 

What follows is a blur. They clear out some kind of security checkpoint, another wave of Peggies rolls in from somewhere nearby, the violence escalates. She can barely keep herself upright. Adrenaline is the only thing fueling her now, but it is poor sustenance. And finally, _finally_ , when it seems they have room to breathe, she tries to make her way back to the man that rescued her. 

She catches sight of him under the harsh glow of a security light, brushes past a stranger who claps her on the shoulder and whoops far too loudly in her ear. Her vision dances and she stumbles over her own feet. She thinks she might be bleeding. She feels the gun, still hot from all the work it’s done, slip from her hand. She hits the ground before she can make it back to the preacher.


	3. No Easy Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You got easy eyes to hunt
> 
> When the world above needs your blood
> 
> There ain’t no easy way
> 
> There ain’t no easy way out
> 
> -Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Ain’t No Easy Way

When Diana comes to, it is with a desperate gasp for breath. She’s been drowning in her dreams; held under, choking and taking on water.

For years, her dreams were full of fire; and oh, how disgraceful it is that _those_ would be a comfort now. And between the fire and the flood, she’d dreamt of that helicopter spinning out of control, blood spattered across the windows, blades shearing through the tops of the trees in its mad descent back to the earth. It’s been less than a week and she already has a fresh set of horrors to add to the mental catalogue she keeps.

She moves to sit herself up, but something pushes her down; hands on her shoulders. She hisses in a breath and fights back a wave of panic before her jittering gaze finally settles on the slender blonde hovering above her.

“Hey, hey, hold your horses. You’ve been through a lot - we don’t want none of your stitches poppin’ out.”

“Um,” Diana tries to clear her throat, coughs instead from the pain it causes. Her throat is still raw, and her neck is unbearably stiff. “Where am I?”

“Fall’s End. Name’s Mary May, and you’re up above my bar,” she replies, taking a step back once she’s satisfied Diana isn’t going to bolt up again. “And you’re safe, thanks to the good pastor over there.” She nods her head to the left and Diana has to crane her neck to see the man who’d saved her seated over in the corner of the little apartment.

“I’m, uh, Diana. Baker,” she adds a second later, almost as an afterthought. She’s still coming to grips with being awake. And sober.

Mary May nods like she already knows, hooks her thumbs into the pockets of her jeans and gives Diana a wry smile. “Pleasure to finally meet you, deputy. Old Dutch radioed in some time ago to let us know you were on your way, but...sounds like you hit a big old heap of shit between there and here.”

Diana huffs out a small laugh and nods, relaxes a little bit. She reaches up to scrub at her eyelids as if she might be able to wipe the memories away. “‘Big old heap of shit’ is a fairly apt description.”

“Now that you’re awake, I’m gonna run downstairs and fix you up somethin’ to eat, ‘cause you must be starving and I know Jerome’s been chafin’ to talk to you. But, listen, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need, alright? Rest up. ‘Cause we ain’t done yet. Hell, we haven’t even _started.”_

Diana doesn’t miss the pointed look she gets as Mary May places a bottle of water in her hand, pats her gently on the shoulder and turns to leave. “Thank you,” she croaks out, immediately trying to fumble off the cap so that she can drink.

The preacher comes over then to take Mary May’s place, dragging up a chair so that he can sit in front of Diana. He sighs as he sits back down, looks pained, and it’s fairly obvious he didn’t make it out of last night fully unscathed either. He looks her over for a few seconds before extending a hand. “Jerome Jeffries. Like the lady said, I’m the pastor over at the church.”

Diana sucks down half the water in the bottle before she has to stop to breathe. She wipes the back of her arm across her mouth hastily before reaching out to shake Jerome’s hand. She’s feeling a bit feral at the moment, but she’s also too hungover to really care. “Thank you. For stopping that van. I don’t-“

Jerome scoffs, but it’s good-natured . “You probably shouldn’t be thanking me for that little stunt,” he responds with a shake of his head. “It could’ve gotten you killed. But, desperate times...I’m, uh, sorry things got a little heated back there,” he says, sounding genuinely contrite, which surprises her for some reason. “If I’d known you were in no condition to fight, I wouldn’t have asked you to…”

Diana finally sits herself up on the threadbare old couch they’d laid her out on, grimacing at the pull she feels in the skin of her forearm; she looks down to see some of those stitches Mary May was talking about. Shaking her own head, she grumbles, “something _happened_ to me yesterday. I-I got sick, or...or drugged, or something.”

Jerome furrows his brows and leans back in the chair, fingers steepling. “They took you to the river, right? For one of John’s little _cleansings,”_ he asks with a bitter tinge of derision on his tongue. “They’ve been dumping that Bliss shit of theirs into the Henbane. Water’s all polluted—except maybe up in the Whitetails, at the source.”

“What the fuck is _Bliss?_ I mean, uh—pardon my language...”

Jerome waves her off. He is still wearing that kevlar vest, and he was most definitely shooting down Peggies last night. She guesses the fuck word really isn’t much of a concern of his these days, if it ever was.

“It’s a drug Faith has been mass-producing. Made from some genetically modified strain of jimson weed. You definitely got hit with it,” he says, looking at her quite seriously. “You were all over the place last night.”

Diana’s brow knits and she chews her lip for a moment, winces as she pulls open a small cut and tastes blood, coppery on her tongue. Jimson weed. She immediately thinks of those white flowers in the tractor-trailer she’d blown to hell the day before.

Jerome seems to study her again, reaches up to adjust the half-rim glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and leans forward in his chair. “They’ve been using it to ‘help people see the truth,’” he says with a small flourish of air quotations, as if he can read the questions circling ominously around her mind. “Or some such bullshit. Drugging people into submission— _brainwashing_ —that’s what they’re really doing.”

 _“Jesus Christ_ —um, sorry,” she mutters. “Is that what John does? Baptizes people in fucking _Bliss water_ and takes them to...to confess, or atone, or whatever?”

“More or less, I suppose,” he says with a small shrug. “John doesn’t use the stuff like his siblings do, though; at least, not anymore. When he nabs people, I think he waits til they’re nice and sober and _scared_ before starting in on them. He, uh, marks people - tattoos them - with their sins. Real or imagined, I guess it doesn’t really matter. It acts as a kind of right of passage; all the Peggies get it,” he lifts a hand, taps his fingers against his collarbone, “right here. And other places, I’m sure.”

Diana looks over at him sideways, mouth etched into a deep frown. She itches for a cigarette. The deeper she gets into Hope County, the more fucked up everything’s becoming; and the more she realizes there will be no easy way out. “So, what? You’re tellin’ me instead of them wearing the same Nikes, they’re all gonna be hitching a ride on the back of a comet with the same ugly-ass tattoos on their chests instead?”

Jerome chuckles a little ghoulishly and shakes his head, looks off out the window. “Nah. Once they’ve reached their atonement, he _cuts_ the damn tattoo right out of their skin. Symbolism, you know? And then they’re all gonna be riding out ‘the Collapse’ in their bunkers; cut up and drugged out of their minds and helpless to the whims of that _family...”_ He pauses, clenching one of his fists in clear agitation before letting his gaze drift back to her. “Speaking of, that brings me back around to what I wanted to talk to you about, deputy.”

Diana blinks. She doesn’t realize til now she’s just been twisting the cap on the bottle back and forth, tightening and loosening anxiously. She forces herself to stop. She is starting to wonder if goading John Seed, as little control as she had over herself aside, wasn’t the best idea.

“They got a few of our people last night. We were trying to get to a man by the name of Merle Briggs, but...well, with the state you were in, we had to cut our losses. We’re pretty sure he was taken up to John’s bunker.”

Diana shakes her head again. “Why would you risk so much to save _me_ instead of going for one of your own,” she can’t help but to ask, incredulous and wary as she is.

“It’s not exactly something I’m proud of, but we’ve been forced to start thinking about things _strategically_ since Joseph’s happy little clan sunk their teeth into our necks. You, you’re an unknown to them, and that’s what we need right now. And, well—thanks to Dutch, we knew you already had stakes in the game—what with them abducting your colleagues. It was a calculated risk. One that I hope ends up paying off, for both of us.”

Diana opens the bottle again and drinks down the rest of the water, trying to give herself a few moments to consider the weight of what’s happening. She at least has to grudgingly appreciate his honesty, if not much else about this whole situation.

She can’t help a bitter sigh escaping as she toys with the empty container . “I wouldn’t say I’m ‘unknown’ anymore,” she replies in a measured way. The sharp crinkle of plastic betrays her tension though, as she squeezes the bottle in her fist. “Seems like everybody knows _I’m_ the one who got away, and I don’t think they like that very much. I don’t know why the fuck they’re drugging and disappearing people, but...I think I’m pretty high up on that list now.”

Jerome nods. “I’m not disagreeing with you. But you have the element of surprise here, deputy. They don’t know what to expect from you.”

 _“I can’t do it alone,”_ she spits a little more harshly than she probably should. “It’s just been me and—“ she cuts herself off suddenly before Boomer’s name can fly from her tongue.

The realization that she has no idea what happened to that dog hits her hard for a second, and she has to force herself to swallow it down. “You expect me to break into a bunker to get this guy out!? I already know John’s got my partner, but I don’t know how the _hell_ I’m-“

“Hey, _slow down,”_ he cuts her off, slicing a hand through the air to punctuate his statement. “I’m not asking you to run headfirst into the most heavily-fortified part of the valley all by your lonesome. That’s suicide. We’ve just...got to trust that Merle and your partner can hold out for a while longer. In the meantime, there’s folks all over the county who’ve been in radio contact. Most are holding out on their own against the cult, but only just. We start slow. Go and help a few of them out, bolster our own ranks - _quietly_ \- then we can see about storming the stronghold. That sound fair?”

Her brow knits. She sighs heavily, her mind trying to go in so many directions at once that it seemingly stops altogether, buckling under the weight of stress and still fuzzy from the Bliss. What choice does she really have?

Just as she’s agreeing to his terms, Mary May comes back in with a plate full of breakfast food. The smell sends Diana’s empty gut into borderline hysterics and she tucks in gratefully, taking huge swigs from the quart of orange juice the younger woman also set in front of her.

They discuss the holdouts of Hope County over a map that Mary May spreads out on the coffee table. An ex-army sharpshooter last known to be holed up in a church somewhere to the west; a pair of trouble-loving trailer park cousins somewhere out to the northeast, and Diana clearly remembers the name Charlemagne being thrown around back at the station, along with a string of charges including arson, criminal mischief, illegal possession of both firearms and explosives, public intoxication _and_ indecent exposure, just to name a few. She quietly tables the cousins away, preemptively deciding they are most likely more trouble than they’re worth.

There are also two local pilots Jerome makes mention of, as well as two other, bigger resistance groups spread across the county - the Cougars have been trying to keep the cult away from their base at the Hope County Jail, and the Whitetail Militia have been doing their utmost to protect the people up in the mountains against whatever the fuck Jacob Seed is doing with his ‘training programs.’ Reports are scarce and dismaying from all sides, but especially so from up there.

The pastor leans forward in his chair, taps his finger down on the southwestern portion of the map. “I’d like to see you check on Grace first. We got word she was out at the church yesterday, but she’s been quiet ever since. I’m worried she may have run into trouble - it’s not too far from John’s ranch, and there is a lot of cult activity down that way.”

Diana examines the spot where his finger hovers and nods once. “Grace. She’s the sniper?”

“Hell of a girl,” Mary May confirms. “Been through a lot, but she’s tough as they come. And she’s got some bones to pick with the Project. My guess is, she’ll be happy to help out.”

“She’s one of our own, deputy. We need to check this out, just to be sure.”

Jerome levels her with a stern look, but she can tell it’s more of a plea than a demand. Diana swallows, meets his gaze with as much confidence as she can muster. She is not fond of the idea of heading into ‘heavy cult activity,’ but perhaps if she stays off the roads she’ll have a better chance of skirting their patrols. “Okay, then.”

Jerome’s finger travels towards the southern-central portion of the map. It hovers for a moment before tapping a spot close to the Henbane. “Out here we’ve got some more people who’ve gone silent. The Woodsons. Once you’ve made sure Grace is alright, I’d like to check in on them as well.”

Diana finishes up her breakfast and agrees because she can’t really say no, asks if there’s a place in town she can re-arm herself; the cult took all her weapons and supplies when they’d found her the day before.

She is taken down the stairs and through Mary May’s bar, the Spread Eagle, and led outside to view what is left of the town proper. There is still a general store up and running, and Pastor Jerome assures her she will be set up with everything she needs.

Diana catches sight of the garish Hollywood-esque YES sign that decorates the hills far to the north; she’s seen it many times since moving out here, but today it’s taken on a far more sinister significance. Even with the sun shining brightly, a shiver runs through her at the memory of John Seed manhandling her jaw and assuring her that her atonement would _not_ go easy. 

A clipped bark suddenly cuts through the relative quiet of the main street from over by a mechanic’s garage. All three turn their heads, and there’s Boomer, legs all spread in a nervous power stance, ears stuck up at full attention. He barks once more before bolting from the street corner.

Diana only has a few seconds to try and prepare herself before the Heeler’s front paws are off the ground and on her and she can’t help but scrunch her face and grimace through it as he stretches up to start licking at her. It stings where his tongue scrapes over all the little cuts and abrasions, but she feels a surprising wave of relief wash over her at the knowledge that he wasn’t taken or killed.

“Holy _shit,_ Boomer,” she manages, muffled through the dog’s ferociously affectionate assault, _“how the hell’d you end up here?”_ She finally has to plant a hand between herself and the dog’s nose to encourage him back to the ground.

“Ah, you two have met, then,” Jerome says almost fondly as he plants his hands on his belt. “One of ours found him wandering by the side of the road yesterday, _howling._ They were on their way into town anyway, so they stopped and picked him up. We were wondering what happened after we lost touch with Rae-Rae…”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t anything good,” Mary May replies dubiously from beside them before taking a knee to give the Heeler some of her own attention. Boomer hops excitedly, lifting his front paws before bounding over to her.

Diana glances back between both of them and shakes her head. “No. Cult had the place. Had _him_ locked up in a cage—ready to ship him up to the mountains, I think…?” She starts chewing her lip again, has to force herself to stop before she reopens that cut. She crosses her arms and lifts one hand to chew the edge of a fingernail instead. “What are they doing up there?”

Jerome and Mary May make eyes at each other before they both look back at her. Mary May only clears her throat a little hoarsely and focuses her attention back on Boomer.

“They, uh...seem to be training some kind of an army,” Jerome blinks and removes his glasses, pulling a small scrap of cloth from one of his back pockets. He wipes the lenses deliberately, stress lines creasing his forehead. “We’ve heard a number of the folks John’s taken actually end up out there. But, uh, we don’t ever see any of them again.”

Diana levels him with narrowed gray-green eyes, looking intensely because she knows by the way the pastor’s suddenly fidgeting that the situation isn’t good. “What did they want with the dog?” she asks, slow and cautious.

Jerome finally looks up at her as he slides his glasses back on. “It’s not just people Jacob’s been taking. Supposedly there’ve been animal experiments, too. It’s...well, we don’t hear too much down this way, but whatever’s been going on out there, it’s not good. I’d be very careful if you find yourself up in those mountains, Miss Baker.”

Diana just looks at him long and hard for a few moments, mouth set into a thin line. She doesn’t like how weirdly formal it sounded. He didn’t even say ‘deputy.’

“Hard to believe John isn’t even the worst of ‘em,” Mary May interjects acerbically, breaking them out of the tense silence they’d fallen into as she gets back to her feet. “Whole family’s a _fucking_ nightmare. Like out of some Stephen King book, or something.”

They cross the street to the general store and Pastor Jerome parts from them there, saying there are wounded back at the church he needs to check in on. He wishes Diana luck and urges her to stop in and visit from time to time; otherwise, he’s always available via the radio.

Hope County has suffered from notoriously bad cell phone reception for as long as anyone can remember, and Diana lost hers somewhere between the helicopter crash and waking up in Dutch’s bunker, anyway. But she assures the pastor she will grab another CB from inside the store before he leaves the two women on their own.

Diana fills a new backpack with various supplies, a first aid kit and a change of clothes, picks out a new hunting knife and a pistol; she looks briefly at a few shotguns and rifles the owner, Travis, has mounted on a rack on the wall behind the counter.

She grabs a new radio and some non-perishables, almost walks right by a rack half-full of trucker hats before stopping to grab one and fit it onto her head. She snags a new pair of sunglasses as well, scans the racks for a few more minutes before turning back towards Mary May, who’s waiting with her shoulder propped against the door-frame. “Weird question, but...you don’t happen to have any makeup back at the bar, do you?”

Mary May looks taken aback for a second, and then she just laughs and pushes herself away from the doorframe. “Sure. A woman’s gotta look her best when she’s fuckin’ up a Peggie’s day, after all. Come on.”


	4. Ain't Got a Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ain't got a man
> 
> I ain't got a son
> 
> I ain't got a daughter
> 
> I ain't got no one
> 
> I'm a lonely girl
> 
> I ain't got a home
> 
> Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry, Ain’t Got No Home

Diana reaches the Lamb of God church around what would normally be dinnertime.

On her way, she’d even freed a few hostages; prodded along at gunpoint just off the side of the road, two Peggies at their backs moving them toward one of those church vans before she’d intervened. She’d told them to rally back at Fall’s End, that it was safer there.

Trying to bolster the ranks, _quietly._

She can hear the rapid staccato of gunfire as she approaches the church, though, and thoughts of the civilians drain from her mind in favor of the AR-15 she was able to commandeer from one of the cultists; it will be far more useful than the pistol she picked up back in town. She clutches the gun to her chest now, creeping across the road to come at the church from the woods to the south. She commands Boomer to stay back in the trees, not knowing whether he’ll actually obey or not.

It turns out to be a smallish wave of Peggies assaulting the property; enough to fill two trucks parked kitty-corner to one another, blocking the church’s driveway and part of the road. The sniper is up in the belfry, and once they’ve dispatched the cultists - one from up on high and one from the long shadows behind the tombstones - the woman yells for Diana to come up to the roof.

“Name’s Grace. Got word someone was out makin’ trouble for the cult.”

Diana breathes a little heavy from hauling herself up the ladder at the side of the building, throws a hand out in exasperation as she approaches. “No offense, but what the hell are you doing trying to defend this place!? There’s _nothing here.”_

“Those graves down there? They got war heroes buried underneath ‘em. My pops is buried down there,” Grace replies in a curt tone that brooks no argument. She turns away from Diana to put one boot up on the belfry’s frame, leaning out to keep watch. “The Peggies are tryin’ to defile ‘em. Erase our history. Demoralize us. _Break us_ so we’ll roll over…”

“But-“

“Not on my fuckin’ watch,” Grace cuts in with a pointed look back. “Ain’t nobody gonna touch my pop’s grave while I’m still breathin’.”

Diana frowns and watches the other woman carefully for a few moments. Before she gets the chance to say anything else, both of their radios crackle to life.

_“They’re up on the roof!”_

“You gonna watch my back?” Grace glances over before throwing back the bolt on her sniper rifle.

It is obvious she is going to keep fighting no matter what the answer, so the junior deputy simply heaves out a sigh and slings her own gun off from over her shoulder. “Guess the fuck I am. Where you want me, sergeant?”

Grace smirks a little maliciously and nods her head back toward the open rooftop. “I got a barricade set up out there. Get behind it and stay behind it. And watch the ladder.”

Diana follows the instructions she is given, and it is a brutal firefight. Several ATVs and a few more trucks swarm the road in front of the church quite suddenly, announcing themselves with the discordant clamor of squealing tires and blaring horns. Scattered cultists emerge from the trees as well, and she can’t even stop to think where the hell they came from.

The distinctive green shine from Grace’s laser sight sweeps across the graves that dot the hillside the church is perched on, punctuated every few seconds by the teeth-rattling boom of shots being fired.

Diana obviously forgets to check the ladder behind her for some minutes, too focused on the Peggies down below. She runs out of ammo at one point and half-turns on her knee to grab a box of 5.56 rounds from the backpack she’d set beside her. Out of the corner of her eye she catches movement and turns to look just as a dirty, wild-eyed cultist comes into view at the top of the ladder.

 _“Fuck,”_ Diana mutters and fumbles the bullets she was about to slam into the chamber. She gives up, lets them drop and roll away across the roof to reach for the pistol at her thigh.

He dives to his stomach just as she fires a shot, scuttling across the roof like a goddamn lizard, teeth bared, and he is on her in a matter of moments. Diana shrieks and falls back against the barricade, kicking her feet out to keep him at a distance.

A sudden explosion from down below startles the both of them, but Diana regains some of her wits first and takes her chance, cuffing the cultist upside the head with the pistol. He grunts and ducks away, blindly swinging a fist in retaliation. It connects with the side of her head and sends her vision spinning for a second. She thrusts the pistol forward, feels the barrel impeded by some part of his body and pulls the trigger.

He recoils backwards with a startled yelp of pain and trembles for a few moments before falling still, blood pooling out from the ragged wound in the side of his chest to stain the church’s shingles. Diana takes a few to gather herself up, shoving the pistol back into its holster and rolling over to rummage for more rifle ammo.

Near the end she can’t stay put any longer; the remaining Peggies have learned what their fallen brothers didn’t, and they are staying well-hidden behind the rock walls and tombstones littering the hillside.

She books it back down the ladder and drops the last few rungs to the ground, unshouldering the rifle and making her way around the backside of the church. It is almost full dark now, and she makes use of the scattered bursts of gunfire to creep her way through the edge of the cemetery, helping Grace pick off the remaining handful of Peggies. Boomer chooses this time to come bounding out from a path behind the church, taking out a few cultists of his own along the way.

When Grace finds her down on the ground, she is sunk against one of the tombstones with a hand pressed gingerly to the side of her head. Boomer hovers beside her, whining softly as Grace approaches. Diana ruffles the fur at the back of his neck in an effort to reassure him, then takes a few swigs from a bottle of water before offering it out to the other woman.

“Got all the water I need inside,” Grace politely explains as if she isn’t planning on leaving any time soon.

Diana narrows her eyes and levers herself to her feet, grabbing up the rifle to hold at her side. “I understand you love your dad, but you can’t just _stay here._ That’s suicide. You know that, right?”

A mask of steely reserve falls across the other woman’s face and she turns, fingering the flag-printed scarf wrapped around her neck. “I’m not lettin’ those fucking Peggies tear this place apart.”

“Grace, they’re _dead_. You’re not helping anybody staying camped out here. There are people out there, _alive,_ that need help fighting back. _I_ need help.”

The sniper’s gaze flicks back to her and she lifts her chin slightly like she’s appraising Diana, finally sizing her up. It’s unclear if she takes any offense to the deputy’s bluntness.

 _“Please,”_ Diana offers up with something of a withering sigh. She knows how heartless she sounds, but she can’t bring herself to apologize for it.

Grace turns back to look up at the church for a time before her eyes sweep across all the fresh corpses littering the funerary grounds. She inhales deeply, closes her eyes and remains silent in such a way that Diana actually almost wonders if she’s started praying.

“So what’s your plan,” she eventually asks.

Diana falters. “I, uh…” She stiffens, readjusts the rifle slung over her shoulder. “I have no idea, actually. Help people out where I can, I guess, try to help people resist, but it’s - I won’t lie to you - I think John Seed’s got it out for me now. I think it’s gonna be _real_ fucking dangerous…”

Grace only scoffs, letting her own rifle dangle by her side. “Not like I ain’t used to that.”

She heaves a final sigh before seeming to gather up whatever loose strands linger in the air tethering her to this place. “C’mon,” she says with a wave of her hand as she starts walking away, “it’s getting dark. There’s a place up the road we’ll be safe.”

**. . . . . . . . .**

The house Grace leads them to is nothing but charred bones when they reach it some thirty minutes later. Some fires still burn here and there, chewing away at what remains of the structure's frame. There are a few Peggies lingering around the property, smoking cigarettes and cuffing each other like they’re actually proud of the work they’ve been doing.

There is one man with an honest-to-God _flamethrower_ striding back and forth, fuel tank strapped to his back, a heavy-duty respirator mask covering his face. Pretty easy to explain how the fire got started, at least.

Diana peers out at him from their cover under the trees and then shifts her eyes to Grace. The woman just stands there a few feet away, taking in the scene. She clutches the sniper rifle tight to her chest, fingers flexing over the metal casing.

By the wide, empty look in her eyes, Diana has to wonder if this place was hers. She hadn’t said much on their walk; preferring to keep silent and slip through the twilight shadows, and Diana had responded in kind.

Before she can say anything, Grace takes a step forward and raises the butt of the rifle to her shoulder.

“Gra-“

The gun makes a sound like a muffled, clipped crack of thunder - Grace is smart, she’s got a silencer screwed onto the end of the barrel - and before Diana can even finish saying her name, an explosion shakes the ground beneath their feet.

She hit the flamer’s fuel tank. The man wielding it is blasted to charred, unrecognizable pieces in just a matter of a few seconds. They are hit with a short blast of intense heat, and then the three other Peggies are scrambling and yelling and spreading out around the small, burning crater in the ground.

Diana squints, recoils slightly and clamps her gaping mouth shut. After a beat she rallies herself and raises her own rifle, stalking forward to let loose a string of shots in a horizontal line, right about chest level. Two of the Peggies drop, taken too much by surprise to realize they were being attacked.

Grace puts down the third cultist, and then she’s marching forward out of cover and into the yard, Boomer bounding along parallel to her, his ears pricked right up at full alert.

Her head stays on a swivel before she gets close to the wreckage and her eyes finally settle back on the house. She stops when she seems to deem it safe, lets the gun hang by her side and just stares.

Diana watches carefully for a time before finally moving across the yard towards her. “I’m, uh...look, I’m sorry, but we can’t stay here-“

“No,” she replies distantly. “We can.”

Diana blinks, confused, throwing a hand out into the air incredulously. “I don’t-“

Grace seems to find herself again and moves toward a gaping hole in one wall that had once been a window. “They keep hunting at night,” is the only explanation given.

She runs her hands along the window frame, putting weight on it to make sure it will hold before she puts the rifle inside and then hops up to climb through.

Diana whips her head around to check the perimeter once more before grumbling and finally trailing after the sniper. She looks in through the window to see Grace lifting up a hatch built into the floor.

It’s actually _brilliant_. She hadn’t even thought about utilizing the prepper bunkers scattered across the county; they are nearly impenetrable, and are probably the only places where someone could spend a night without having to worry about getting disappeared or flat-out killed. The only problem is, there’s no way in hell she is going to be able to get Boomer down there.

Diana just stands outside the window for a few minutes, chewing her lip and making eyes at the dog that’s taken a seat just beside her on the blackened grass. “You stay close. Okay?” She points a finger at him for good measure.

Boomer makes a clipped sound in his throat and angles his head up at her. She grimaces, reaches down to ruffle him behind the ear. “Sorry.”

His consolation is a bowl she pulls from her backpack and fills from a small bag of dog food she’d grabbed back at the general store.

She turns, climbs through the window and follows Grace down into the open shaft, locking the door above them before continuing to the bottom.

They are silent for a time. Diana does not know how to ask Grace about the smoldering ruin resting above them. It is a stark reminder of her own past, a nasty mess of thorns inside her mind that she unexpectedly finds herself entangled in.

She paces the length of the shelter, goes into the little bathroom and putters around; scrubs the blood and dirt from her face and forearms, runs her fingers through her hair in some attempt at combing it. She stands there and stares at herself in the mirror for a few minutes. She has a bruise blooming, dark on her temple from where that cultist managed to hit her. But at least she’s still alive; same can’t be said for him.

When she comes back out, Grace is sitting on one of the beds attached to the wall, looking down at a piece of paper - a note or a letter, maybe. Her hat and flak jacket sit discarded beside her, the rifle leaned up against a desk a foot or so to the right of the bed.

Diana thinks she can see a shine in the other woman’s eyes, even with the way her head is bowed. She moves out from the narrow hallway, starts scanning the canned food stacked on the shelves against one wall. She can at least make herself useful while Grace deals with whatever feelings are accosting her.

“You, uh...you got family?”

Diana stops with her hand on a jar of tomato sauce. “No.”

Grace hums quietly in acknowledgement. Diana can hear the crinkle of the paper being folded up. She grabs the jar and a box of pasta from the shelf above, turning toward the counter just to her right. A small electric burner sits there, along with a coffee pot and a toaster oven, all ready to be used in case of emergency. Now seems to be as good a time as any.

“This was my parents’ place. I stopped in yesterday, just to...to check on things. They’d marked it.”

Grace sighs heavily, and Diana can’t help glancing over as she squats to search the cupboards under the counter for pots and pans.

“I should’ve known they’d come back and do somethin’ like this,” Grace continues after a generous pause, voice cracking. She clears her throat hastily. “Those crazy motherfuckers just _won’t stop.”_

Diana tries to stifle the raucous clatter of pans as she sorts through the cupboard, finally stands a few moments later with a pot clutched in either fist. “What does it mean when they mark somebody?”

Grace’s eyes flick up to her and she can’t stop herself from sniffling just a little, looking away again as the deputy starts filling one of the pans with bottled water. “They put up posters, tag your house or your car; usually it’s the word ‘sinner’, but I’ve seen other things, too. It’s a warning. A scare tactic.”

Diana plugs in the burner and turns, leans her backside against the counter and folds her arms. “And then burn your shit to the ground so you have nowhere to run _except_ right to them?”

“Sometimes,” she says with a small shrug. “If you’re _too_ seditious, they usually just try to take you out. S’what happened to me and my pops. Peggies ran us right off the road, into the river. I made it out. He wasn’t so lucky. Heard somethin’ real similar happened to Mary May, too, little while back.”

 _“Jesus,”_ Diana replies, grimacing, toeing her boot at the floor. Too many coincidences. She still isn’t sure being _shot at_ by some kind of rockets or missiles could be considered ‘run off the road,’ but she and the Marshall had ended up the same way just a week before. She reaches up to scrub her face with her hands. She has no clue if he’s even still alive. No clue about _any_ of them, except for what she’d seen of Joey on that television.

“So I guess they know by now they ain’t killed me. Knew I’d probably try to come back here, too. They’re smoking us out, deputy. Pryin’ us right out of the trenches we’ve dug.”

Diana lowers her hands and looks up at the other woman. She’s never been an especially optimistic person, but her jaw veritably aches from all the frowning and grimacing and clenching of teeth she’s been doing as of late; though, every part of her aches, if she were to be honest. “So...what do _you_ suggest we do about it?”

“You were right when you said we gotta fight back. There’s plenty of people out here who want to, but not many of ‘em got the know-how you and I got. So,” she adds with a small shrug, “I guess we help where we can. And fuck up every Peggie’s day we see in the meantime.”

Diana levels her with a cruel little smirk and gives a nod of approval before turning to tend to the cooking. She empties half the box of pasta into the pot and then sobers all of a sudden, pausing for a moment before glancing back. “I’m, uh...sorry. For what it’s worth. About your dad; about this place.”

Grace stands up and sighs, running the folded-up note between her fingers a few times. “Yeah. Me too. But I always got memories. And I got everything he taught me. And Joseph fuckin’ Seed can’t take that away.”

Diana asks many questions that night about Joseph, and his siblings, and the cult. She also manages to dodge any questions Grace might have about her own family, distracting the sniper instead with queries about the other people supposedly still at large across the county who might be able to help them and whether or not anyone’s heard _any_ word from the outside.

Diana’s sleep is broken and restless, haunted by both the knowledge that Boomer is up above unprotected, and the steadily strengthening realization that she is in well over her head. Every day that passes is a trial, a fight for survival, another dozen chances to die. Her short respite in Fall’s End only served to stoke the anxiety building up, creeping inside her chest and constricting. And with what Grace filled her in on about Faith’s ‘Angels,’ the massive Bliss farms across the river and Jacob’s conditioning programs up north, it works to rid her of any last vestige of peace she might have had.

She finally slips from her bed at some wretchedly early hour. Donning her flannel overshirt and boots and strapping her pistol to her thigh - just in case - she slips past where Grace sleeps in the opposite bed and makes her way to the ladder that runs topside. She needs a cigarette. Badly. She also figures she can check in on Boomer. Just to be sure.

Unlocking the hatch and pushing it up, she makes her way into the burned-out house. She goes to the window frame, peers through to see Boomer’s food bowl overturned on the ground, empty. He is nowhere to be seen. She’d had fuzzy thoughts that he might be curled up there, beside where they’d disappeared, waiting.

_Maybe he’s just around the corner._

Diana climbs out through the window with a grunt of effort. She has to bite her tongue as she scrapes the stitches on her forearm against the wood, hissing in a sharp breath and pulling her arm away.

Some parts of the house are still smoldering; she catches sight of a few thin wisps of smoke rising into the chill night air when she turns around to examine the perimeter. It seems quiet. She takes a few steps toward the corner, peering around as she pulls a crumpled pack of cigarettes from the flannel’s breast pocket.

She plucks one out, sticks it between her lips and replaces the pack, continuing along the side of the house. _“Boomer,”_ she whispers as she fumbles in her pocket for a lighter.

A rustle in the bushes dead ahead makes her stop in her tracks. She presses her back flat against the house, removes the hand from her pocket and places it on the butt of her gun, eyes narrowing.

A loud, haunting kind of squawk comes from somewhere in the treeline and immediately sends her heart into a frantic staccato; she jumps even as she recognizes the call of a grey owl and knows it’s not a threat, but it scares her half to death all the same.

Movement back in the bushes catches her eye and she rips the pistol out of the holster only to level it at Boomer, who comes striding out from the edge of the woods unbothered, tongue lolling from one side of his mouth.

Diana releases a breathy puff of air and feels the tension drain from her muscles, immediately lowering the gun and letting her head thump against the siding of the house. _“Jesus,”_ she breathes, the cigarette bobbing up and down.

A sharp and sudden pain in the side of her thigh makes Diana jump once more and she swats at the offending presence with her free hand, almost sending a bullet from the pistol into her own foot in the process. It feels like the sting of a huge hornet or a wasp, which doesn’t make sense because she’s heard no insects nearby.

 _“What the fuck!”_ She looks down to see she’s knocked some sort of squat little dart out of her leg and into the grass. “What the fuck...?”

Diana stares at it in burgeoning horror for as long as she dares before pushing away from the house and attempting to get back around to the blown-out window. She hears Boomer whine and then start barking behind her. Her vision starts to swim and sparkle and she feels bile rising in her throat. “What the _fuck-“_

She gets dizzy all of a sudden. The cigarette falls to the ground and then she follows, collapsing to her knees. She tries to raise the gun in the direction of the road - where she thinks the dart may have come from - and just retches violently instead. She drops the pistol in favor of clapping her hand over her mouth to try and stifle the overwhelming urge to vomit.

For some reason all she can think of is her mother, many years ago, chiding a young teenage girl in that tired, disillusioned way she had for always being so _goddamn reckless._ It’s probably a blessing Diana’s mother isn’t here to see her daughter collapsing into an unresponsive heap on the ground, eyes unseeing and glassy, pupils blown wide.


	5. Oh, John

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come brothers and come sisters
> 
> Come weary and come strong
> 
> Come meet the man who reaps the land on which we walk upon
> 
> The time has come for judgment but we ain’t done nothin’ wrong
> 
> The Hope County Choir, Oh, John!

Diana wakes to a swift kick in the shoulder, crying out hoarsely as pain flares to life there, spreading like fire through all the nerves around the joint. She rolls onto her side and clutches at the spot protectively, curling in on herself in a way that probably seems pathetic and childlike.

“There. ‘Bout time the sinner bitch finally came to.”

“Would’ve been easier just to put a bullet in her.”

“That is _not_ the will of the Father.”

Diana’s mouth opens and closes like a fish. She blinks hard, trying to straighten her blurry vision and rid the tears from her eyes. Two dimly-lit figures hover over her menacingly, and she doesn’t need to be able to see them clearly to know that she is in some _deep shit._

“Take her to John. He’s been waiting to hear her confession.”

She flinches and bares her teeth as one of them bends down to grab at her ankle. She kicks out impotently and he simply catches her boot and yanks her back hard across the floor. The other Peggie chuckles ruefully before coming around behind her and sliding his hands under her armpits to haul her up off the ground.

Diana wavers in his grasp and struggles meekly, still trying to regain control of her mutinous limbs; the Bliss makes her sick and disoriented, makes her body feel like jello sliding all around, unable to comprehend its own weight.

The first man goes over to a small table, turning his back to them for a moment. She hears a sharp ripping sound, and before she knows it he is slapping a strip of duct tape over her mouth.

She is dragged through a starkly lit hallway strewn with heavy crates and their creepy church paraphernalia and a few stern, looming portraits of Joseph, down a flight of stairs and halfway down another hallway.

They take her into what genuinely looks like a torture dungeon, with a blood-stained concrete floor and a huge antler chandelier hanging from the ceiling; it is a hellish decoration and red light streams down through it in a spiderweb pattern, illuminating the lone figure strapped tightly to an office chair in the center of the room.

Diana recognizes Joey almost immediately; her vision’s finally cleared up, and what she sees is _infuriating._ She emits a muffled cry of rage from behind the tape, renewing her struggling as the two Peggies force her down into an empty chair and begin strapping her wrists to the armrests in a manner not unlike how Joey is bound. One of them ties up her feet while Joey wriggles against her own bindings, coming to life when she recognizes Diana, crying out from where her own mouth is _still_ taped shut.

Diana tilts her head up and levels the men with the absolute _meanest_ look she can muster, and they just stand there and laugh. She tries to memorize their bearded faces. When she gets out of this, she is going to find them.

One of them leans down, flattening his palms on his thighs as he narrows his eyes at her. “You should be thankful, you know that? The Father wants you spared. Just relax, little sinner—you’ll feel better after you confess.”

He gives her a shit-eating grin and reaches out to poke the tip of her nose and she wishes she could bite his stupid fucking finger off.

They leave the two deputies alone in the cavernous room. She pulls in heavy, rapid breaths, the cloying smell of iron and sweat and fear pervading her senses as she pulls against the bungee cord they’d tied her up with. She wishes she could say something to Joey, but of course that would never be permitted. All they can do is watch each other from across the room.

John Seed finally graces them with his presence a good twenty minutes later, whistling a little goddamn tune to himself as the heavy bunker door swings shut behind him and he strides across the floor between the two women with a toolbox held in one hand.

Diana can’t help but wonder if he gets off on making people wait; making them drive themselves crazy wondering what kind of horror lies in store. She wonders if Joey has gone crazy yet; if she’s been through this routine, knows all about the horrors of which Diana can only speculate. She’s been here a week already, after all.

John starts in on some little soliloquy about his parents and Diana has no choice but to listen. She looks away in disgust when he staples what very well might be a piece of _human skin_ to the back of the workbench, but her attention is quickly drawn back when he slams his staple gun down onto the table, talking about pain, sounding annoyed that her attention has drifted from him for even a moment.

He grabs something else from the toolbox and sidles over to her, reaches out to flip on a swing-arm table lamp and angle it up directly into her eyes. She hisses air through her nose and blinks fast, turning her head away while he keeps on talking. The after-image burns her sensitive retinas and she jerks herself roughly against her restraints, huffing out angry sounds.

John fiddles with what she soon realizes is a tattoo machine, attaching the clip cord and turning it on, letting it buzz in his hand for a moment to make sure that all is working. The realization of what he’s getting ready to do hits her like a slug to the chest; not that she hasn’t been under the needle a time or two, but the implications of this particular circumstance seem rather _fucked,_ in her humble opinion.

“I spent my entire life looking for more things to say yes to,” he says as he shuts the machine off and sets it down on the small table beside her. The smell of whatever expensive cologne he wears mingles with the sweat-and-rust stench of the room as he leans in. He gets that same cutting look in his eyes he’d had back at the river, and somehow she’d never noticed how impossibly _blue_ they actually are.

The realization flits from her mind like a leaf caught up by a strong wind, gone as soon as it’s arrived when he takes hold of the collar of her t-shirt and rips it open. She growls from behind the tape and jerks around in the chair fruitlessly.

“I opened every hole in my body and when those were filled, I created more,” he explains almost gently, eyes flicking up from her exposed collarbones, entirely unbothered by her inept struggling.

He finally backs away and regales them with increasingly frenzied rants about courage and sin and weakness and _oceans of pain._ And then he has the _audacity_ to ask which one of them wants to go first, as if they’re all sitting around having a friendly campfire pow-wow and neither of the women have their mouths taped shut.

Joey thrashes against her restraints, crying frantically, but John never even acknowledges her. He has eyes only for Diana, and all she can do is scowl and breathe loudly through her flaring nostrils and think about impaling him with the knife sharpener he’s been waving around.

John spins suddenly and shoves the workbench over onto its back with a startling clatter when he receives no volunteers. _  
_

_“Fuck’s sake,_ we’ll start with you!” he practically shouts, turning on Diana and approaching her with an air of thinly-veiled brutality.

He leans down only inches from her and it is remarkable how effortlessly he seems to slip back behind a mask of poise and placidity. He has boyish eyes, the kind people usually swoon over, and she has no doubt in her mind that he knows it.

It’s like that little outburst never even happened.

“You won’t regret this. I promise.” In the blink of an eye he’s morphed back into the grandiloquent poster boy and he’s actually fucking _smiling_ at her.

“Now, before _we_ begin, I think it’s only proper that Deputy Hudson goes back to her room,” John continues as he backs himself away and moves behind Joey’s chair. “Confessions are supposed to be private, after all.”

He kicks out the lock and shoves her forward and Joey starts screaming and then Diana doesn’t know what else to do so she starts in as well; it’s quite a caterwauling, even muffled as it is by the tape. John slows and stops Joey beside Diana, shushing and looking back and forth between the two of them.

“I am not here to take your life,” he explains as his gaze shifts and holds on her, “I’m here to give it to you.”

He moves like a cat; self-assured, taking a step to the side, pushing the lamp away from Diana and insinuating himself into her space once more, tattooed hands moving to clasp her shoulders. She squeezes her eyes shut and groans at the spark of pain that flares where she was kicked. He doesn’t even seem to notice.

“I am going to open you…and pour your worst fears inside. And _as you choke,”_ he hisses through bared teeth, fingers digging into her flesh with venomous intent, “your sins will reveal themselves. Only then will you truly understand the power of _yes.”_

He smiles again, gaze flicking down to the spot he’s claimed below her throat before he returns to Joey and curls his fingers around either side of the back of her chair. “Be right back.”

They disappear from Diana’s field of view but she can hear Joey’s screams echoing and then the door clanging shut behind them. Her breathing picks up and her body tenses.

She immediately looks over to her right, to where the workbench came to rest on the ground. The toolbox lies open on its side a few feet away, some of its contents strewn across the floor. He’d thrown the knife sharpener; she has no idea where that came to rest.

She moves her feet; those men weren’t very bright, they didn’t even bind her ankles to the base of the chair, only to each other. Extending her legs, she catches the heels of her boots on the floor and experimentally tries to drag herself forward. It works, but not very well. She glances over to the toolbox again. If there’s a knife or something in there, she just might have a chance…

Diana shuffles her legs to the right to turn herself in the appropriate direction and then uses her heels to scoot herself across the floor. It goes painfully slowly, and it doesn’t take long for her to work up a sweat. She shakes her head to get the hair out of her face, grunting hoarsely behind the tape. Her hands flex around the chair’s armrests, grasping impotently at the air.

She has to maneuver around a tall wooden stool and a bucket with a mallet leaned up against it. _How nefarious,_ she thinks. She starts to wonder if John is the type of man to break someone’s kneecaps, but she can’t keep that train of thought up for too long or else she might freeze up. If she doesn’t get herself out of this, she’ll find out the answer soon enough.

That is all it takes to spur her on; she looks briefly at the workbench, but it has no shelves or drawers to hide anything that might be of use to her, so she continues through the blood on the floor - which she also tries not to focus on for too long - and toward the toolbox.

There’s a pair of what look to be wire cutters laying on the ground, and she zeroes in on them with a sudden spark of hope. She scoots a bit closer, angles her head down and looks around. The only way she’ll get them is if she tips herself over, and even then, if she doesn’t get the angle just right…

There’s no use in debating. She doesn’t have the time. She closes her eyes, tilts her head back and takes a few long, slow pulls of air through her nose to try and calm her racing heart. She positions herself as best she can so that hopefully her left hand, the dominant one, will come down on or near the cutters. And then, with one mighty pull, she thrusts herself forward and tries like hell not to land on her head.

She crashes to the floor in an almighty clatter and ends up knocking her skull against the concrete anyway; her vision blacks out momentarily, and she is getting _awfully_ goddamn sick of that. She’d like to spend just one entire day conscious, but it’s looking like it might not be in the cards.

It takes a minute for Diana’s senses to come back to her. She jerks her body, trying to shimmy herself and, by extension, the chair just a little closer to the cutters. She reaches out with her fingers, barely brushing the edge of the handle.

She shimmies again, pushing awkwardly with the side of one foot and furrowing her brows. She has to twist her wrist at an incredibly painful angle, but she feels the cutters there, just beneath her hand, and all she has to do is close her fingers around the handle.

The sudden sound of the door opening makes her jump and sends her heart rocketing up into her throat. She lets out an agonized wail and can’t help shaking the chair, kicking her legs out in the fury of her own futility.

John tsks and sucks his teeth, and she hears his footsteps stop behind her. The door clangs as he shuts them in. “Oh my - no, no, deputy - well, this simply won’t do.”

She squeezes her eyes shut just before he manhandles her back into an upright position. Her head spins and she has to choke back the sudden knee-jerk urge to puke.

He leaves her once more, makes his way across the room to a tripod with a video camera attached to the top. He adjusts it and turns it so that it faces her, presses a button and bends down to peer through the lens, all very easy-going.

He nudges the camera upwards a bit and then, satisfied, walks out around it and claps his hands. “So! Here we are.”

He walks back flashing a smile and stops beside her with a little goddamn _flourish_ as he reaches out, catches one corner of the tape between his fingers and rips it off of her without so much as a warning.

 _“FUCK!_ Fuck you! Ah, God— _fuck_ —” She shouts and gnashes her teeth, can’t help it, digging her nails into the chair’s armrests. The skin around her mouth feels raw and burned, like all the nerve endings have just been collectively exposed to the air.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I should have mentioned that was probably going to hurt,” John replies patronizingly. He balls up the tape and tosses it to the side with a satisfied little sigh, tilts his head and looks down at her.

“Deputy Baker. _Diana._ Roman goddess of the hunt,” he muses slowly as he clasps his hands behind his back and starts pacing before her. “Seems rather appropriate, although…contradictory. _You_ were the one being hunted, after all.”

The fact that he knows her name takes her off guard momentarily. She sneers, intent on hiding her discomfort. “Isn’t that some kind of _blasphemy_ to you?”

John scoffs and shrugs and paces. “It might be, if there were anyone left who believed in it. However, ancient Roman philosophies are just that - _ancient._ I am far more preoccupied with current events. As _you_ should be.”

He pivots on his heel and lunges forward, wrapping his hands around her forearms and squeezing. “The Collapse is _imminent,_ deputy. And I,” he lets go to raise one hand toward his chest, fingers splaying, “I am a shepherd, chosen by God through the Father, to wrangle up the flock and march them through the Gates. And those who will not open their hearts to his word…will perish.”

“Yeah…yeah, you know, I read your brother’s _stupid little book_ before we came to arrest him,” she spits, becoming too lost in her own indignation to remember to be scared. “And I’m not saying he’s wrong—I’m saying I _don’t fucking care._ We’ve nearly destroyed the world as it is, so maybe it _is_ time for some cosmic retribution. But _God_ did _not_ give you the right to go out there and make it _worse._ You’re no shepherd. You kidnap people and you torture them. You’re a _fucking monster.”_

John’s mouth curls into a cruel smile, showing teeth. “A monster? Hm? Is that what you see when you look up at me,” he queries as he leans in closer. “What about when you _look in the mirror,”_ he hisses, reaching up to jab his finger into the center of her forehead forcefully. “You’ve been out there, traipsing around _murdering_ my brothers and sisters. You’re in no position to be casting stones, _Diana.”_

She can’t help a strangled laugh, eyes rolling and going wide as she surveys the dingy room around them. “Your _brothers and sisters_ were trying to kill _me!_ And what have you been up to down here, in your sick goddamn _H. H. Holmes-fucking-murder-dungeon!?”_ She scowls and sneers and levels her gaze up at him. “I’ve never claimed to be innocent. But you—you’ve got no fucking right to do what you’re doing.”

He chuckles and meets her gaze and remains remarkably passive. A thoughtful look crosses his features for a moment, eyes turning downward before he leans in very close to her, close enough for his beard to brush against the hair resting over her ear.

“You are…an enactor of a great many sins, aren’t you, deputy?” He inhales sharply and it makes her tremble ever so slightly, the way he’s like a toothy predator catching a whiff of prey.

“It _reeks_ —the sin inside you. You are _full_ of wickedness,” he mutters almost triumphantly as he retreats just enough to meet her eyes again. “And it is my job to pull that wickedness from you - without judgment - no matter how _messy_ it gets…”

Diana leans herself back against the chair as far as she can go, as far away from him as she can get.

John turns, bends down and picks up the wire cutters, running his fingertips along their length. “Our souls _need_ to confess. By looking deep within ourselves - by exposing the darkness inside us - we free our souls from the burden of their sin.”

He looks up to her once more, eyes boring into her with that cutting darkness she’s quickly coming to recognize. “That is what I am offering. I will save you, deputy. I will help you lift that burden. I will help you confess. All you have to say is _yes.”_

She shakes her head, incredulous and fraught with something far beyond worry. “You can’t save people who _don’t want to be saved._ That’s not how it works. You can’t _force_ someone to have faith. All you’re doing is forcing a lie.”

 _“Everyone wants to be saved,”_ he hisses vehemently, letting the wire cutters dangle from one hand as he invades her space again. “No matter how deeply you bury it - just like sin - it will eventually rise to the surface, because it is _in our nature._ We are all base beasts with many faces, Diana. It is in our very nature to sin, and it is in that same nature to crave _forgiveness_ for those sins…to crave _acceptance_ … _atonement.”_

He smirks suddenly, the corners of his eyes crinkling in feigned good humor. “Which leads me to my first question. Why don’t you want to be saved?”

She clenches her jaw, flexing her hands again. She refuses to look away from him, though. Maintaining eye contact, meeting his assault head-on, gives her the feeling of _some_ semblance of power, and she needs to take whatever she can get. “Because there’s no fucking point. God _doesn’t exist_. Your brother doesn’t have _cozy little Sunday chats_ with him. He’s _sick._ You all are.”

John inhales deeply, stands up straight and starts playing with the wire cutters again. Opening and closing them, flexing his hand rhythmically. “Now we’re starting to get to the root of something, aren’t we, deputy? A _proud_ heathen and a genuine anti-theist,” he muses, pacing again in small circles. Always moving.

“Two more shining marks for the scorecard. If you’re so laissez-faire about whatever happens to be the ultimate cause of our destruction, then _why fight at all?_ What is it you owe the people of Hope County? What makes _them_ better than my family? What makes _them_ more deserving of compassion!?”

He lunges forward, grabs at one of her hands and wraps his fist around her pointer finger, forcing it out straight, bringing the wire cutters up menacingly. _“What is it you’re trying to atone for by helping their_ fucking _misguided little resistance!? Hm!?”_

Diana’s eyes widen into veritable saucers and for the briefest of moments, she is stunned into silence, stiffening up against his grip. And then, fight or flight kicks in. _“Get the fuck off me!”_

A sharp knock on the outside of the door makes John turn his head, brows knitting in clear irritation that their little ‘session’ is being interrupted. _“What!?”_

“Brother John, uh, sorry to interrupt,” a muffled voice calls from the other side of the heavy bunker door. “The Father’s on the radio–he’s asking for a word with you.”

John lets out a heavy breath, closes his eyes for a moment. He hangs his head in a rather dramatic display before releasing her finger from his grasp. Raising the wire cutters, he points them at her, jabs her right in that bare spot on her chest hard enough to be rewarded with an angry hiss. “I want you to sit and _think._ Think very hard about just _how little_ you want to be saved. Because _I_ think, when it comes down to the wire, deputy - when you are on the brink of death, when you think you might be breathing your last - you _will_ fight to survive. You _will_ fight to save yourself.”

He finally backs away from her, stuffs the wire cutters into his pocket and returns to the camera. “And the only way you’ll be able to do that is by summoning up the courage to expose your sin and accept the fact that there is something bigger at work than your own inflated sense of _hubris._ Ultimately, I think you’ll find our ends are the same,” he muses as he hits the power button and tilts the lens down; there will be no confession now, no point in letting it keep recording. “I can’t possibly fathom what the Father sees in you, but I will do his bidding. It is our duty to save those deemed worth saving—to see them brought through the Collapse.”

He sidles back across the room, pauses beside her and puts a hand on her shoulder in a way that seems entirely too comfortable. “So I want you to think about my offer. It’s just one word, deputy. Think about how relieving it could be, finally having someone in which you can confide. Someone who will pass no judgement.”

He leans down and starts loosening the cord around one of her wrists, grabbing her by that arm and dragging her the few feet to the workbench. Then he ties her up again, so that her wrist is attached to one of the crossbars between its legs and she can’t scoot herself anywhere else while he’s gone. “I’ll be back. Eventually.”


	6. Stranglehold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You ran the night that you left me
> 
> You put me in my place
> 
> Got you in a stranglehold, baby
> 
> You better trust your fate
> 
> Ted Nugent, Stranglehold

The minutes drift into an hour, slowly flowing into unknown hours. Diana is left completely alone in the dingy red-tinted room, and there is nothing for her to use to mark the passage of time; unless she counts the number of breaths she takes.

She’d long ago stopped wrestling with her restraints; they are tied too tightly and she was expending too much energy.

She has no idea if anyone will give her food or water, and so she must focus on conservancy. She tries to do some little exercises with her legs every now and then, lifting and stretching and rotating her ankles so that if she _does_ get the chance to bolt, they hopefully won’t give out beneath her.

The heavy silence is sometimes interrupted by muffled screams coming from other rooms. Sometimes she hears voices passing by outside. Sometimes she sleeps. She dreams of fire and blue eyes and a forked tongue. It’s almost funny; for being such a heathen, she’d never dreamt of devils before now. 

_“When it gets too hot for comfort, and you can’t find an ice cream cone…it ain’t no sin…to take off your skin…and dance around in your bones…”_

She’s singing to keep herself awake. Her voice sounds like shit, but that doesn’t particularly bother her.

_“When you hear sweet syncopation, and the music softly moans…”_

The door finally opens.

She barely moves her head, just slides her eyes over in the direction of approaching footsteps. _“It ain’t no sin, to take off your skin…and dance around in your bones…”_

 _At least he’s looking well-rested,_ she thinks acerbically as he comes around from her left.

He’s carrying a tray with a plate, a glass and a pitcher of water sat atop it. He sets it down on the wooden stool. There’s bread, corn and some kind of meat on the plate, and when the smell hits her, the hunger she thought she’d managed to quell rears its ugly head with a vengeance.

“Good afternoon, deputy,” John greets her in a clipped and cheerful tone.

He makes his way to the video camera to turn it on, angling it back up. “I hope you’ve put this time I’ve given you to good use—were you practicing for the county choir, by any chance?”

She narrows her eyes, finally dragging them away from the tray to meet his gaze. “And how much time was it, exactly? I seem to have lost track.”

John raises his gaze to the ceiling, considering the question, and then brings up his wrist to check his expensive watch. “About thirty-six hours. Give or take.”

She takes the number with as much grace as she can manage, but it startles her nonetheless. It had felt like forever and like barely any time at all, and she has trouble reconciling it.

“Are you ready to confess?”

Straight to the point. That suits her just fine.

“I have conditions.”

John lets out a short burst of laughter. He crosses his arms and meanders, shakes his head as if what she’s said is a wonderful joke. “I don’t think you’re in any position to be making demands, deputy.”

She licks her dry lips and scowls up at him. “I want you to let your hostages go. Hudson, Merle Briggs. You want me, you let them go.”

John stops his wandering, tilts his head and looks over at her. “You…are in no position…to be making demands,” he repeats, drawing each word out as if she’s some bothersome child, slow to understand. “Do you still not realize this is the safest place for them? For _you?”_

 _“Fuck you._ Let them go.”

He scoffs. And then he reaches out and knocks over the stool, a sudden and violent outburst that sends the tray of food and water flying with an insufferable clatter. _“Is this a fucking joke to you!?”_

Diana flinches, accustomed to only muted sounds and silence as she’s been. Her eyes follow the food with a distant longing, and that seems to irritate him even more.

He stalks over and grabs Diana’s chin just like the night he’d attempted to baptize her, forcing her to look up at him. “It took you a good deal longer to come up from the Bliss than it does most people, but do not think _for a second_ that I won’t use it to make this go easier! Do you realize how much worse it could be!? Here, all you have to do is confess! In the east, well—Faith may have created her Angels, but she never did _treat_ them all that well. There’s a few roaming the halls in this very bunker, if you’d like to get a glimpse of how you _could_ be walking through the Gates. Or, _shuffling mindlessly,_ I should say…”

At the mention of the Bliss, she freezes up. At the mention of Angels, she feels that vice of anxiety clamping tight in her chest and squeezing, keeping her frozen.

Grace had told her enough to give her a good idea of how they’d built that huge statue across the river, and the labor had _not_ been voluntary. Faith was overdosing people left and right, rotting their brains away and turning them into mindless, drug-fueled slaves. And _that_ is a fate worse than death

His smile is somehow both warm and cruel when he sees the signs of genuine fear in her; jaw clenched much too tight, eyes gone glassy. “Good girl. Maybe you’re not as stupid as I’d feared.”

He finally releases her and walks a few steps away, that false mask of boundless patience returning once more. “So. This is how we’ll begin. I’ve done my homework since we’ve been apart; it will be your job to fill in the blanks.”

He clasps tattooed hands behind his back, turns around leisurely to face her. “My first question: have you ever had _any_ relationship with God?”

She swallows thickly, rolls her eyes. “No.”

“Hm. You were born in Maine, near the coast. Your father perished at sea when you were only seven years old. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“There was no,” he waves a hand like he’s thinking through his question, “no talk of ‘daddy’s gone to Heaven, he’s with the angels now?’ Nothing?”

“No.”

He pauses for a beat before continuing. “Your mother remarried, moved you here, to Montana, when you were ten. Yes?”

“…Yes.”

“Very good. Not so hard, is it? Now, here we get to the _interesting_ bits. I’ve skimmed plenty of police reports; some of them being the result of you running away for days at a time, leaving your mother _sick_ with worry.”

He approaches her again, boring into her with those eyes, freshly alight with malign intent. “And I know plenty of reasons why children run away. You said you read the Book of Joseph; then you know something of our own childhood, don’t you? So let me take a guess,” he ventures as he leans down, wrapping one hand over her forearm and the other over the empty armrest; her right hand is still tied to one of the crossbars between the workbench’s legs. “Stepfather wasn’t very _nice,_ was he?”

Her mouth twitches slightly but she offers up no response this time, only angling her head away from where he looms.

“Did he beat you up? Did your mother know? Or did he wait and do it at night, when she was working second shift at the hospital?”

“Stop it,” she hisses through her teeth.

“Did he get filthy, stinking drunk first? Did he use his _belt?”_

_“Shut the fuck up!”_

The cruel smile turns into an even crueler grin. “Were you… _happy_ …when that fire finally took their lives?”

_“How the fuck do you even know any of this!?”_

John blinks and backs away from her ever so slightly, basking in quiet triumph. “I’m sure you know Nancy—from dispatch?”

Diana’s jaw drops. She lets her head fall back against the chair, watery eyes flicking up to the ceiling in disbelief. _“Fucking Nancy…”_

“Mm. I had her pull in a few reports from Laurel and Great Falls. I know all about your stint in Cascade County.” He tut-tuts condescendingly. _“Two years_ for getting drunk and threatening your _much older_ boyfriend with a—what was it? _A Bowie knife?_ And then stealing his car.” He scoffs. “Was it worth it?”

Diana swallows thickly and steels herself against his onslaught. He will continue trying to pick her apart, pry her open, and he already knows far more than he should. She supposes monsters can sense their own, in some way. But she knows some things about him, too. She gets the distinct impression she is about to willingly dip her toes into shark-infested waters, and dives in head first anyway.

“Sounds like I fared better in juvie than you did in foster care. What was it, in that book…I think he says those years with your foster family were a _‘long, elaborate exorcism?’_ I bet you were _fucking thrilled_ when those people died,” she grits out with a hardened edge to her voice, hoping to cut.

“Though, it seems like you really took some of their bullshit to heart, huh,” she muses, glancing around the room. “What with the forced confessions, the penitence, _the power of yes-”_

John’s eyes cloud over with barely restrained violence and suddenly his hand is on her throat; he swings her around in the chair so that the back of it collides with the workbench, giving him a solid surface with which to pin her against. His hand only tightens when she gasps and wheezes in her surprise.

 _“The Duncans may have been maniacal zealots—but that was my test! What I suffered…brought me back to my brothers. It prepared me for my_ purpose,” he croaks out, voice gone low and dangerous.

All she can do is gasp, trying desperately to suck in any amount of air through her constricted windpipe; he is squeezing hard, and she wonders if she doesn’t deserve being ended in such a way. She shouldn’t be surprised.

John clenches his jaw and holds her for a few more seconds and then, _finally,_ he backs away. He puffs out an irritated breath, paces, cracks his knuckles while she wheezes big gulps of air. “You are…irritatingly stubborn… _petulant…prideful…”_

He shakes his head and suddenly starts for the door. “But this is a war you will not win, Diana. The Father wishes for you to reach Atonement, and I,” he brings a hand up, circling it over his chest briefly, “I will be the one to help you.”

Her eyes roll in her skull, and she watches him pull open the heavy door and step part way out into the hall.

“Brother Levi! Stop for a moment, if you’d be so kind,” he calls out - so falsely benevolent - presumably to the first person he sees.

“This sinner is in dire need of some additional cleansing if she is to be shown the error of her ways and brought into the Father’s flock. Get someone to help and take her up to one of the vans, would you? I’ll drive her to the river myself.”

She hears the man acquiesce readily, and then John comes back into the room. He makes his way back to her, stepping over the bucket and around the blood stains on the floor.

Her nerves spark at the mention of another trip to the river; at the thought of being plunged back into that goddamn Bliss water. All she can do is grimace, tracking him with red-rimmed eyes both exhausted and wary. She doesn’t know how much more of this she can stomach.

John leans down over her yet again; these Seeds really do love invading people’s personal space. The mask has changed again, too. He looks down at her almost like he’s concerned, blue eyes searching with something that feels a little too much like pity.

“This isn’t just for me, Diana. I am trying to _give you back_ something that was _taken_ from you,” he croons gently, reaching up to smooth her sweaty hair out of her face, tucking the strands gently behind her ear.

“In the Project, we are all a family. We have shed our burdens, brought our monsters out into the light for all to see and _banished_ them; cut them out like a cancer. But I can’t do it all by myself. I need your help. I need you to open your heart to the Father’s words; I need you to open your heart to _me_. Otherwise, we’ll never get anywhere.”

She shakes her head, wetting her lips again. The brazen armor she’s held up in front of herself for so long is cracking. “Please don’t…don’t _Bliss_ me,” she pleads in barely more than a whisper, unable to meet his eyes anymore.

“We’re already halfway there. I know what’s been laid before me in so many official reports. I know you were transferred to Hope County because you just _could not shake_ that arrogant, _infuriating_ streak of rebellion that runs through you. Great Falls was tired of dealing with your attitude, and so they sent you _here,_ where they thought you couldn’t possibly get into any more trouble. I know you’re alone. And I know there’s _something_ …deep and dark…inside you.”

John finally backs off a bit, dragging some of her hair between his fingers and pulling with a small yank of his hand. “And if you will not pull it to the surface willingly, I will use whatever means lie at my disposal to pull it up myself.”

Diana exhales a shuddering breath as he steps away, letting her gaze rise to the ceiling once more.

He leaves her without another word.

When ‘Brother Levi’ comes in to collect her, he ties a blindfold tight around her eyes before removing the cord that binds her ankles. Her hands are untied from their restraints and then tied together in front of her, and she is dragged, stumbling, from the room.

When she finally feels fresh air on her skin and breathes it in, she almost laughs. Despite the situation, knowing she is outside sparks hope somewhere deep within her and she tries to latch onto it with what little of her rational composure remains. Her legs are unbound. There is still a chance she can get away.

She hears a car lock beep twice and then the sound of doors opening and she is manhandled up inside what she presumes is the back of one of their transport vans. The hard wooden bench they sit her down on confirms it. Her arms are lifted above her head and they attach her to the wall, put the cording between her wrists over a hook or something so she won’t bounce to and fro; or maybe to prevent any thoughts of escape.

She hears John’s voice, muffled, from outside after they shut the doors on her. The engine grumbles to life, and then the van is moving. Her mind moves along with it, wracking itself for ideas, tripping over half-formed thoughts of resistance and escape. She can kick and struggle all she wants when he comes to retrieve her, but she won’t get anywhere blindfolded.

She’s unable to focus, though. Not on those things. His words roll back through her mind, accompanied by flashes of memory, sharp though she’d tried _so hard_ over the years to dull their edges.

Walking back to their house in Laurel only a couple hours after she’d run off for the fourth time in so many weeks. Hearing the sirens blaring, seeing the flashing red and blue lights reflecting off the trees and rooftops of the other houses in their suburb. Smelling the smoke, black and billowing against the muted light from the street lamps.

She was fifteen; an abrasive, petulant brat who was about to be kicked out of school anyway for poor grades and bad behavior and even worse attendance. And when she’d seen the firefighters hauling two gurneys out from the back of an ambulance, two black bags yawning open atop them ready to receive their offerings, she had run.

Diana’s head snaps up when the van finally stops. She works her legs, trying to prepare for any opportunity to run once more. It seems to be what she’s good at, she’s coming to realize; from pain, from death, from stupid shitty lying boyfriends, and now from some fanatical fucking cult. She’s been running for a long time.

She hears the front door open and footsteps crunching on gravel. The back doors are thrown wide and the van dips where he climbs up inside.

“If you try to kick me, I will break your legs,” he says quietly and very matter-of-factly as he unhooks her arms from the wall.

She makes no response, so he guides her to stand and positions himself behind her, hands curling around her biceps as he begins to shuffle them forward. He hops down out of the back first and then helps her to follow, holding her steady, _almost_ reassuring.

She is uncomfortably aware of how close he is. Without the benefit of sight, her other senses are straining to correct for the imbalance. She can feel his breath against the back of her neck. They are going down a sandy incline and whenever she stumbles, he bumps into her before grumbling and setting her right. She can smell the river and dirt and pine needles; and she can smell his cologne, because the breeze happens to be at their backs.

They wind down some kind of a path, and then the incline flattens out somewhat and John guides her on until they are suddenly walking into the water, shoes and pants be damned.

“I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” he begins muttering softly behind her, “make straight the way of the Lord, said the prophet Isaiah…”

Diana turns her head slightly as they wade deeper, nerves getting the better of her as the water laps up above her knees. “Can you at least take this fuckin-“

 _“Shh_. I baptize you with water for repentance,” he continues, voice still low but fervent, pushing her out farther despite how she’s started protesting. “But He who comes after me is mightier than I. And He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with _fire_.”

“Listen, this isn’t-“

He cuts her off once more when he spins her, presses his palms into her shoulders and forces her down.

It happens so fast she doesn’t even have time to react; the water envelops her, invades her mouth and her nose, makes her start to panic.

She thrashes underneath him, but before it can go on for _too_ long, he’s hauling her back up into the air, pulling her against himself to keep her steady.

“Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth!?” he recites vehemently from just beside her ear, and it sounds much too loud.

She raises her bound hands and actually _searches_ for him, searches for something, anything, she can grasp onto. She can’t even answer because she’s still coughing out water. She finally takes hold of his vest in one hand, the collar of his silken shirt in the other.

“Do you believe in Joseph, the Prophet, Father and Shepherd of Eden’s Gate!?”

She can only shake her head; her whole body shakes and trembles against him, soaking his expensive clothes in river water. A sob rips its way up out of her throat, making her voice crack. _“Please stop!”_

“There is a very simple way to end this, Diana,” he croons into her ear. _“Let go_. Let the water wash it _all_ away. Let that monster out—I know it’s in there. _Show it to me_. Say… _yess,”_ he hisses, digging his fingers into where he holds onto her tightly. _“Yes, I believe in God Almighty. Yes, I believe in Joseph the Father!”_

“I…I…”

She’s better prepared the second time he pushes her under. It’s no less quick and vicious, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d assumed it was going to happen again. She doesn’t thrash as much this time. She’s exhausted. Running on fumes, on quickly depleting adrenaline. And now she’s starting to see those little sparkly floaters in the darkness behind her eyelids.

He hauls her up once more and reaches up to rip the blindfold off of her face. She blinks hard and fast, and he asks her, yet again, if she believes in God and the Father.

He must have thought she’d break this time, because when he finally meets her gaze it gives him pause for just a moment; whatever he sees in her eyes is not what he’d expected.

She watches how his own widen minutely, flickering with a kind of boyish naïveté she’s only caught elusive glimpses of; like he’s suddenly not sure anymore whether he’s won this particular battle.

He has no idea about the bright green point from a laser sight currently wavering back and forth across the side of his head.

His eyes harden once more; his brow pinches. _“Do you-”_

Diana suddenly spits the mouthful of water she’s been holding onto directly into his face.

His words die, replaced with an indignant grunt as he recoils from her. At almost the same moment, a gunshot is heard and a large-caliber bullet buzzes the air between them, causing barely a splash when it breaks the surface of the water a few feet away. It would have hit true if John hadn’t suddenly yanked himself away from her.

Neither of them have time to think about that, though. While his hands are off her, Diana takes the opportunity to run.

She heads for the approximate direction the bullet came from, sloshing through the water like she’s trying to run from a monster in a dream; slow and weighted down. She can hear him yelling furiously and splashing behind her, but she doesn’t dare look back.

Not until a hand grabs at her shirt and yanks her backwards.

She balls up her fists, hauls back and swings her arms around as hard as she can, lets out a clipped cry when she makes contact with his skull. It’s nowhere near enough to knock him out, but it _does_ send him off-balance.

Another shot rings out and the bullet plunges into the water just shy of his hip. John can’t help a furious yell escaping as he cringes away from the spot and Diana slips from him once again.

She works double-time to haul herself into the shallows and up onto the shore, nearly goes ass-over-teakettle when she slips on a rock coated with a slick layer of algae.

Pastor Jerome is suddenly there to catch her though, taking Diana’s weight with most of his torso and the breadth of one arm while he levels a pistol at John with the other.

_“You are making a grave mistake, Diana!”_

_“Get_ fucked, _Johnno!”_ She screams back at him hoarsely, lifting her arms above her head to show him both middle fingers while Jerome holds her steady.

John seethes in the water, soaking wet shoulders rising and falling with every agitated breath. _“Pastor Jerome_. So nice to see you again,” he hisses, voice dripping with low derision. “And I see you’ve teamed up with the _sinning deputy.”_

Jerome only nods curtly and hauls Diana up the embankment toward the trees, never taking the gun off John as they move. “Sure, John. I’ll throw my lot in with anyone who wants to put an end to this madness you’ve all brought down on us.”

“You are _blind!_ And you are _selfish!”_ John asserts, pointing an accusatory finger out at them. He makes no attempt to advance, though, wary of wherever that sniper still lurks in the trees. “And if you will not come to the Project willingly, you will be _taken_. Make no mistake. _All sinners will confess.”_

Jerome doesn’t bother answering, just keeps backing them away from the water, nudging Diana along behind him while he keeps his eyes moving between John and the uneven terrain under his feet.

When they are far enough away, he tells her to run the rest of the way up the embankment to where Grace is waiting. Jerome makes sure they are not followed before hurrying along behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Diana sings to herself in the beginning is called 'T'aint No Sin' By Tom Waits <3


	7. God That You Deserve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You want to have it all, you want to be absolved
> 
> You got the God that you deserve
> 
> Bow down west, kneel to the east
> 
> You got the God that you deserve
> 
> We’re put upon this earth to help our fellow man
> 
> Let’s help him to the chopping block
> 
> We can mow them down with a bible in our hand
> 
> Shower them with love disguised as rocks
> 
> Channel 3, The God That You Deserve

John does not risk following Jerome and Diana. He’s not that stupid.

He just stands there, thigh-deep in the water; chest heaving in barely contained fury, clenching and unclenching his fists.

He should have put his revolver in his belt. Should have brought a fucking _retinue_.

He had gotten cocky, vainglorious. After she’d nearly broken down at the threat of the Bliss he thought he’d _had_ her.

He slowly reaches up to wipe her spit-water from his face, clenching his jaw so hard he starts to feel it up inside his head, a little node of pain throbbing somewhere deep. She’d spit it right at him.

_Right in his face.  
_

The fucking audacity—the _pride_.

…The _wrath_.

He’d seen it flash behind her eyes just before she’d committed the act. The hardening of the brow. The steely grimace that had pursed her sinful little lips, so wont to spit filth and vitriol. He wonders if all that pitiful whimpering and clutching she’d been doing was just an act.

He strikes out at the water, slapping his hand through it in a vicious and futile effort before spinning and sloshing his way back to shore.

John doesn’t drive back to the bunker. He heads for the ranch instead. He _wants_ to go bury himself in the bowels of his Gate and take his fury out on the other one, Hudson; oh, he very badly wants to visit his own wrath upon _her_.

But he knows he can’t; Hudson is valuable to him. The deputy wants the woman set free, and if she is dead she cannot be used as bait. And if he goes back to the bunker now, he isn’t sure he’d be able to stop himself.

It is Diana Joseph wants. Something seems to hinge upon her, though John hasn’t been graced with the knowledge of what exactly that something is.

Other than his very own entry into their New Eden, of course.

She _must_ reach atonement. That is all he knows. And despite his efforts to make himself think he’s trying so hard for her benefit, it is a thin enough veneer; he wants to save himself.

He knows his own greed. He knows all of the sins, knows them all by heart, for he has embodied every single one, has them etched into his very own flesh for the world to see.

The angry, crossed-out _sloth_ on his chest is a testament to the price he paid all those years ago to gain his brother’s confidence; to become Joseph’s first herald.

It was the first in a long line of tattoos and scarifications, symbolizing the despair and utter disdain he’d carried within his heart ever since he’d been separated from his brothers and spent those years in the Duncan’s home, subjected to and shaped by their twisted dogma. Joseph himself etched the word onto John’s chest with a pen knife in his very own office there in Atlanta.

Not only did he want to watch the world burn, he wanted an _active role_ in its destruction. The void in him was so empty, so _vast_ , there had been nothing of himself when Joseph came to him. His face a grinning death mask placed over a corpse. His words honeyed lies and manipulations; nothing real, nothing genuine. Eyes full of empty sycophantic good-humor.

But Joseph _saw_ _him_ , saw through the empty shell. Joseph told him the only way he could confront it, to show that he had the courage and the fortitude to overcome those desires and turn them into something righteous, was to bear the mark of his own sin without shame. He already bore the scars of forced self-flagellation on his back, but those were nothing more than historic monuments to a false penance. Brought into the light, borne on the flesh itself, his _true_ sins could be owned and accepted and, eventually, overcome.

Joseph filled John with _purpose_. He recounted the words of the voice that had spoken to him sporadically throughout his own life, both under their parents’ roof and in the years after they’d been separated. And when he had told John about the Collapse, the youngest brother had sworn he’d seen Joseph bathed in some kind of holy light of retribution.

It was everything he wanted. To see the sin _burnt_ out of the world; to be a very _perpetrator_ of such holy cleansing. To be chosen. To be _special_. To know that what they’d all suffered had only been a test of faith. He had much to atone for, certainly; but for a brief time, he’d felt some kind of hope blooming in the ugly quagmire of his despair.

A white church truck, headlights on, parked haphazardly at the side of the road catches John’s attention and pulls him out of the haze of his own memories.

He slows the van suddenly when he sees legs poking out from behind one of the tires, jamming the gear shift into park and hopping out without bothering to close the door behind him.

It is a member of the Project lying freshly dead in a growing puddle of blood beside the truck, and there is another about ten feet behind her. A tangle of snipped ropes litter the ground between the two bodies, and suddenly John knows exactly what happened.

_Deputy Baker and her little friends._

They must have seen one or two of their own being taken, killed two more of _his family_ to let them loose.

_Fucking fools._

John feels the rage boiling back up and kicks the woman’s stiffened body in an impulsive display of ire. He should know her name, probably does, but it eludes him currently. He turns from the corpses and throws open the door of the truck, climbing up inside and yanking the radio from its clip on the dashboard.

He switches it to the common channel he knows the little urchin uses and brings the CB up to his lips. _“I know your sin, deputy,”_ he hisses with the talk button depressed.

“It drives you. Every thought, every action.” He pauses for a bit, staring hard at nothing in particular past the windshield. _“Your sin is wrath.”_

He finds his breath quickening, and suddenly a strangled little laugh makes its way up out of his throat. The irony here is not lost upon him.

It had taken Joseph a few years to realize that John’s penultimate sin was _not_ actually sloth, or any variation thereof.

The more free reign he was given with his duties as inquisitor and baptist, the more his truest, deepest inclinations began to emerge. His anger had festered for _years_. The more that yawning void within him shrunk, it was only being replaced with the knowledge that he finally had the means to unleash his _wrath_ upon the world and its injustices.

“So, I will indulge you,” he continues. _“Become wrath_. Let it fill your body and consume your soul, because in the end, you’ll be empty. And I’ll be waiting.”

John slams the radio down and starts backing himself out of the truck’s passenger side. A few seconds later, static fills the interior and gives him pause as Diana’s scratchy voice cuts through over the dashboard speakers.

 _“You want wrath? I’ll give you wrath, you fucking psycho. I will burn this whole…fucking…valley to_ ash _if you don’t let Joey go. And then I’ll do the same to your siblings.”_

John stares at the speakers. The corner of his mouth curls. He reaches out and picks the CB back up, can’t help it.

She’s certainly recovered quickly, nestled back into the arms of her insolent companions. Every time he threatens her she parries. He’d meant to have that little declaration be the final word of the evening, but even as famished and exhausted as she must be, she’s _still_ got the energy to show him her teeth. So he’ll bite. He couldn’t possibly do anything else.

“I may have underestimated your capacity to make friends, but don’t think it’s going to happen again. I can send men out after you any time I want, deputy. And I will—when you’re good and ready. Just know that every pain you inflict on this Project will be visited _a thousand times_ on those friends of yours. And,” he hisses softly, _almost_ managing to sound like there’s a drop of compassion somewhere within him, “I’m really not sure how much more Hudson can endure…”

Silence drags on in the wake of his quietly uttered threats. The only sound for a short time is the combined rumble of both vehicles’ idling engines.

 _“I didn’t ask to be rescued. I’ll admit, they must need help pretty bad if they keep bothering to save my sorry ass. But_ I _won’t make the same mistake twice, either. Unless you agree to let Joey and the others go, you’re_ not _getting me again.”_

“None of them will be released. They will confess and they will atone, or they will be eliminated. You, on the other hand, I have instructed my men to take alive.”

 _“We both know you won’t kill them, asshole. I’m not as stupid as you think I am. You want me, you need a backup in case your cronies can’t_ catch me. _You need bait. And I need a fucking vacation. So don’t bother sending them out to get me because I won’t be in the valley for much longer.”_

John falters momentarily, readjusts his position from where he’d been half-leaned on one knee over the truck’s passenger seat. He slips back down to the tarmac, pulling the radio’s wire taught from where it’s connected to the dashboard panel.

He doesn’t know what to do with the sudden spike of alarm that shoots through him like a lightning bolt. The very thought is an affront.

She can’t _leave._

She’s supposed to be _his_.

“You leave Holland Valley, you leave my _protection_ , Diana. I’ve been treating you with kid gloves because the Father wants you spared…but Jacob and Faith are not so prone to _indulgence_ as I am.”

 _“Fuck you, John,”_ she replies after a few beats, voice muffled by increasing static, almost like she’s on her way out as they speak. The venom is still there though, coming through loud and clear.

 _“I’ll take my chances,”_ she follows up with a cold air of finality.

“Diana-!”

The stereo plays back nothing but static, empty white noise. He looks down at the radio in his hand. Presses the talk button and says her name again through clenched teeth. Stares at it for a few more seconds before erupting in a furious, incomprehensible growl and launching it back into the truck’s cab. It bangs against the driver’s side door and falls to the floor.

He stalks over to the van, gets back in and slams the door, slams his palms against the steering wheel. He pinches the bridge of his nose, takes a few deep breaths and when that doesn’t help, he peels out in a maneuver far too aggressive for a cargo van and continues on to the ranch.

He marches past the guards who know his moods well enough by now that they don’t speak a word, through the front door, around the bear skin rug and the huge fireplace and up the handcrafted wooden stairs. He retreats to the master bedroom.

And then he proceeds to thoroughly trash the place.

John curses his own stupidity, gnashes his teeth at his own negligence. He’d been _so sure._ But he hadn’t counted on Jerome and Mary May’s resistance taking a shine to the little cretin.

Those two have been involved in a few too many daring rescue missions in recent months. It is starting to get bothersome.

He wants to send a band of Chosen out to obliterate Fall’s End, wipe it off the map, _crush_ it beneath the heel of the Project once and for all. But he daren’t make a move like that without Joseph’s express permission, and that makes him even more furious.

He swipes a stack of notebooks and paperwork from the top of his desk, sending it all scattering across the floor.

No matter what, he has _always_ been pinned beneath someone else’s whims; first it was Old Man Seed, and then the fucking Duncans, now his own _brother_ doesn’t even trust him to handle things on his own.

The same brother that carved _sloth_ onto his chest, and then crossed it out with John’s own tattoo gun years later to write out _wrath_ in even larger, angrier calligraphy across the back of his shoulders, right over those old whipping scars. He’d exposed it, but he’d never quite managed to expel it.

He grabs at the base of a tall and extravagant floor lamp and sends it hurtling across the room, baring his teeth in a mirthless grin as the glass shade and the light bulbs nestled within shatter against the wall.

And now here _she_ is; this impudent, tawdry, absolutely abrasive, _godless_ heathen, and—and—

_She’s just like him, isn’t she?_

Empty of all but rage.

Harboring secrets.

There’s nothing to outright suggest it, but he can _just tell._ Her history of disciplinary foibles. Her impulsiveness, her recklessness. She’s too quick to offer herself up in exchange for the others; in exchange for her partner.

John’s quite sure she doesn’t give a single shit about the other people being held in his bunker, but she pretends like she does because she has to. He’d been mostly bluffing with all his chatter back there about knowing she’d fight to save herself; in all honesty, he’d been more convinced she had something of a martyr complex. Or she was just plain suicidal.

Either way, now that he’s sure—he _itches_ to mark her. He just needs to get her back. Just needs her to confess to whatever it is she’s hidden away from the world, whatever seeds have been sown by the wrath that curls inside her.

Even though the marking is a ritual Joseph taught him, he’d taken to it and made it his own with a fervor reserved only for the most devoted…or the most fanatical. It allowed him to take what the Duncans had done and transform it into something real, something that _helped_ people.

And now Joseph criticizes him for his work.

And he will surely be criticized for letting her escape.

He pulls the drawers from his desk, one by one, sends them hurtling off to the sides of the room.

The wrath will come first. He won’t make the same mistake Joseph did. That one will go across the delicate expanse of her collarbones.

He hadn’t made his mind up about her pride until she’d been standing there - practically being held up by her valiant savior - and _still_ had the sheer audacity to show him both middle fucking fingers.

There is a ham radio set up on the desk. Halfway through pulling out the last drawer John stops, heaves out a heavy breath and straightens, smoothing back his unruly hair. He’s just about to reach out for the switch when the telephone downstairs starts ringing.

Joseph is the only person who calls him on the landline. He’d been expecting it. But he’d hoped he could at least put a call in to Jacob before getting his ass handed to him.

“Fuck,” he curses, flexes his fists and turns for the door, stepping wide over one of the desk drawers that came to land upside down on the expensive baroque rug covering the hardwood.

He breezes down the stairs, wet shoes squelching with every step, crosses to the huge mahogany dining table - loaded with gun cases and supplemental copies of the Book of Joseph, and of course the telephone sat haphazardly near one edge, really no room for anyone to actually sit and eat dinner - and picks up the receiver.

_“John. Did she at least confess?”_

John feels his mouth drying up. He can hear the displeasure oozing in Joseph’s voice despite the low, even tone he takes. “I—no.”

 _“That is…disappointing to hear, brother. It’s no secret that…well, normally, I find your methods a bit_ too _thorough. What happened?”_

John blinks and swipes his palm down over his mouth and the modest growth of his beard; an anxious gesture, to be sure. “I…attempted to cleanse her in the waters again. I thought, perhaps, the influence of the Bliss might-”

 _“Alone? No witnesses? No_ protection? _John,”_ he chides, and the younger brother swears he can practically _see_ Joseph shaking his head in shame.

“It was…impulsive, I know, I just—I was _sure_. I was _sure_ I had her until _fucking Jerome-”_

_“Again?”_

John shuts up for a few seconds, uncomfortably aware of the fact that this is _not_ the first time Jerome Jeffries has taken someone out from under him.

Months back, thanks to Will Boyd’s help, the two of them had sprung Mary May Fairgrave and her brother, Drew, right from Joseph’s very own compound. He _still_ didn’t quite know how they’d managed to do it; he’d been deep in a Bliss trip at the time, and not even a voluntary one.

Drew had not betrayed them. He’d died faithful. But Mary May had gone straight back to that fucking bar of hers as if nothing had ever happened. The only difference now is there is an arsenal stashed there along with all the illicit booze she’s still managed to hold onto.

John moved his operation into his own bunker after that little incident. It was supposed to help prevent anything like that from happening again. It _had_ given him more creative freedom, anyway.

“I didn’t know their little _resistance_ had latched onto her already-”

_“You should have been prepared. We knew Roosevelt was involved, it was only a matter of time before the pastor insinuated himself.”_

He clenches his fist, reaches up to sweep his palm over his hair again. “Has anyone put eyes on her? Where’s she headed?”

There is a pause on the other end of the line. John hears the radio upstairs crackle to life just before Joseph answers and drowns out whatever message might be coming through up there.

_“North. Toward the mountains. You…haven’t been informed?”_

John feels the blood draining from his face as garbled bits of chatter drift down from upstairs. “Informed of _what?”_

_“She just tore through your operation at U.S. Auto, John. Two of your silos are burning as we speak.”_

John freezes. His face contorts with rage, and silently he claws a hand in the air like maybe, if he prays on it hard enough, Deputy fucking Baker will materialize there with her pretty windpipe collapsing beneath his clutching fingers.

“I…had _not_ been informed yet, no,” he manages to croak out without sounding _too_ much like he’s having an aneurysm.

He squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself to inhale deeply. “I will have it taken care of, Joseph. They will not slow down progress on the Revelator. We may have lost some Bliss, but, in the grand scheme, that’s negligible. I can simply put in a call to Jacob—have his hunters pick her up and bring her back-”

 _“Jacob and Faith have both been given the same instructions. She is to be brought into the flock, or she needs to be eliminated. She is to be rendered harmless to us. If_ you _cannot complete the task, one of them surely will.”_

John can’t help a chortle of indignation. _“What?_ You said-”

_“Situations change, my brother. We must adapt as best we can. We must focus on protecting what is ours against those who would seek to destroy it. You have to trust me. I think, perhaps, Jacob’s selection program could be the best thing for her.”_

“Joseph, I don’t— _I can do it._ I _can_ convert her, I just need to get my hands back _on_ her. The little _fucking_ wretch is a _nihilist_ , she doesn’t believe in _anything_ except her own incredible capacity for alienation and spite,” he rambles fervently, lost in his own irritation. “You gave me this task and I _will not_ fail again. But I need answers. I need context. I need to know _why she’s so important.”_

There is a careful silence that hangs between them once again, punctuated only by the static and garbled, frantic voices drifting down from upstairs; no doubt his followers scrambling over what to do about more of their property being taken.

 _“I cannot give you the answers you seek, John, because I do not have them,”_ Joseph finally replies, slow and steady. _“All I know is that she poses a threat to us, to our family. The longer she is out there, trying to destroy all that we have built, the closer she may very well be drawing us to the Collapse. She needs to be subdued.”_

John wets his lips, staring hard at the portrait of Joseph that looms on the wall opposite him. Though little, it is still more information than he’d been made privy to before, and it gnaws at him even deeper that he’d let her get away. “I…if I’d known, I-”

 _“Your methods of conversion have hurt us, John. Those you scar too deeply, they will heal; they will become carriers of your sin. They will spread that sin to others. Look at the deputy; Mary May Fairgrave, Grace Armstrong, Jerome…they have_ all _evaded you. And because you failed to bring them to heel, they are acting out. They are_ spreading _your sin.”_

“But it’s not just-”

_“Jacob and Faith already have plans in place to disarm the resistance in their own regions. We always knew there would be holdouts. We always knew there would be those who refuse to hear our message. But you are not Jacob; brute force and erratic, vain displays of dominance and strength are not what you were meant for, John. I know you still preach the words I have taught you, but I fear you have forgotten to practice them.”_

“Joseph-”

 _“Go and tend to the valley. Tend to your flock. And when the Revelator is finished,_ take _Fall’s End. Send your Chosen into the sky and rain fire down on them. And if Deputy Baker makes it back to the valley—you must not lose her again. I love you, brother.”_

The line goes dead and John is left standing in the ranch, the telephone receiver clenched so hard in his hand it shakes against the shell of his ear.

Joseph has been singling him out more and more in recent years. Treating him like a liability. Treating him like a _child._ Meanwhile, Jacob is nestled away up in the mountains performing experiments that would make the perpetrators of MK-Ultra _blush_ while Faith is allowed to wreak havoc across the river with her ever-growing horde of Angels. All sanctioned by Joseph.

John finally slams down the receiver and turns to go back upstairs. He will tend to the valley, have the fires put out. And then he will send out armed convoys to scour for her, for any and all members of the resistance that dare think they can spit in his eye. Hell, he might even send out a few of the Chosen to do some aerial reconnaissance. 

Maybe he’ll take Affirmation and join them.

Wrath, indeed.


	8. Rocky Mountain Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spent the last year
> 
> Rocky Mountain way
> 
> Couldn’t get much higher
> 
> Out to pasture
> 
> Think it’s safe to say
> 
> Time to open fire
> 
> Joe Walsh, Rocky Mountain Way

It was not easy taking the Baron Lumber Mill, but somehow Diana and Grace managed to do it. It felt like a small victory, but a victory nonetheless, and Diana had to admit they’d needed it; _she’d_ needed it.

She’d counted just missing getting shot in the head on no less than five separate occasions once their cover had been blown, so the fact that both of them _and_ Boomer survived seemed rather like a miracle.

These Peggies up here in the Whitetails are a hell of a lot better trained than any of the ruffians John’s got back in the valley.

Thankfully, none of the people being held prisoner were gunned down during the firefight. They were too busy being _locked in fucking cages_. As it stands, the inhuman brutality of that is probably what saved them; the Peggies standing guard paid little to no attention to them while their comrades were being systematically sniped from the hills.

And now the two women have got Dutch’s niece, Jess, leading them up through the base of the mountains on a mission to hunt down one of Jacob’s top brass by the name of ‘Cook.’ Not especially creative as far as monikers go, but given the backstory she’s telling them, his reputation certainly precedes him.

Grace is oddly quiet all the way; though, to be fair, she’s been quiet for a while. She’d given Diana hell the night before on their mad dash from the valley.

They’d stopped in Fall’s End just long enough to get a half-frantic radio call from Dutch, drop off Jerome and resupply at the general store; Diana walked out with a new backpack, _several_ new guns and an armload full of chips, candy, slim jims, cigarettes and energy drinks.

No time to let Casey over at the Spread Eagle cook her a meal despite how long she’d gone without; faster to stuff her face in the car while Grace drove them north, away from John, in a battered old station wagon some family had left behind when they’d up and joined the cult.

And on the way, when it was just the two of them with Boomer in the back - front paws stood on the center console, head poking out between their two seats - Grace had given her quite the hot little earful.

She’d been reckless. She’d been stupid. She’d left the safety of the shelter beneath a burned out house at least one resistance member was _known_ to have personal ties to, with bodies left lying in plain sight. Grace fucking _told her_ they kept hunting at night. She should have known better.

And, through an incredibly apologetic mouthful of salt and vinegar chips, Diana agreed with every single thing she said. And then, very suddenly, she’d told her to _stop the fucking car._

Off to their left she’d seen orange firelight flickering off the trees, spewing ink-black smoke up into the starry sky. A few cult trucks sat parked in a half-circle around the driveway, and the Peggies were burning a big pile of tires right in the middle of the parking lot. And John fucking Seed’s voice was oozing out from the loudspeakers they had set up on either side of what looked to be a huge garage.

And Diana was still _pissed_.

Wrath, indeed.

Exhausted, stressed out, _stretched out_ about a mile past her fucking limits, and Grace was right; she _should_ have known better. So, she wiped the chip grease off her fingers and lifted the AR-C she’d had nestled on her lap, opened the door and got out. Then she marched out around the hood and straight up the driveway and started shooting.

She managed to hit a gas can on the ground off to the side of the fire; it didn’t explode, but it tipped over and started leaking gas from the hole she’d plugged in it.

Grace had scrambled out of the car frantically to give her backup, kneeling behind the hood to start picking off cultists from afar.

Once the fire caught that gasoline and swallowed it up all the way back to the can, the fight had been over pretty quickly.

Diana felt a little better after that, watching the oily flames tower and briefly engulf the sky.

Grace had been about to start loudly reprimanding her again until they’d heard muffled sounds coming from the back of the property. Upon investigation, they’d found several hostages locked inside some shipping containers and Grace, grudgingly, was no longer in any mood to chide her.

They let the hostages take the station wagon and commandeered one of the cult trucks to travel the rest of the way to where Dutch had said his niece was last seen. Diana had been the one to prod Grace into taking the extra time to light up a few of John’s silos, figuring it might let them both blow off the rest of their steam.

They’d made their way across the small island that housed Joseph’s compound after that, and it was good they had a cult vehicle because the place was _swarming_ with Peggies. Tractor-trailers and farm trucks packed with their jimson weed passed each other in the night, and Diana couldn’t help but fret over how many their numbers must be to require that much busy-work at any and all hours. They _did_ have an apocalypse to prepare for, she supposed.

She’d apologized to Grace again, promising that was the last stupid, impulsive thing she would do. After her rather intimate experience with John, she inwardly demanded that she’d hold herself to it. Suddenly, she had people relying on her. She had to get her head out of her ass and smarten up.

Thinking about all the venom she’d spit at John Seed, it was a miracle in and of itself that he hadn’t simply killed her; hadn’t even snipped off the end of her finger with those damned wire cutters. She didn’t know what she’d be facing in other parts of the county, but she had a pretty good idea that if he got his hands on her again, that bullshit he’d spouted over the radio about his ‘protection’ would no longer apply, if it ever had to begin with.

It was odd though, how he phrased it like that. If she hadn’t known better, she almost could have believed he’d started to sound _worried._

“I’ll never forget that smell…”

Diana snaps her head up from where she’d been focusing on Jess’s boots in front of her and the path they’re following, ever upwards, twisting and turning along one of the ridges that cut up through the mountainside. She glances back at Grace, who has a glassy, far-off expression in her eyes.

She feels guilty she’d only been half-listening to the story of Cook, but, admittedly, she’s got a lot going on right now. It seems to spark some kind of sympathetic reaction in the sniper, though; no doubt Grace is reliving some kind of memory from when she’d been on active duty.

War-time casualties. A hell of a thing. The both of them are stuck up inside their own heads over all of it.

“And he was just gone. Vanished like some sort of demon in the night,” Jess grits out, moving steady and sure up the path ahead of them.

All three snap their heads around when a scream rips through the air from somewhere down the mountain. Jess’s face contorts into a mean snarl and she waves a hand, urging them to continue. _“Motherfucker_. Come on, his camp’s not far now.”

“How the fuck is any of this justified?” Diana asks between panting breaths. “Burning people alive!? Torturing them?! I knew religion was _fucked,_ but-”

“That’s a great fuckin’ question, dep. One I got no answer for. Besides the fact that Joseph _lets_ ‘em do it. I think some of these people always wanted an excuse to go batshit. And now they finally got one,” Jess replies as she leads them around a bend in the path that looks like it ends at an overlook.

They can hear shouting now, coming from down below. The screams have finally stopped. A plume of greasy smoke rises up into the air past the edge of the path. They can smell something _cooking._

Jess’s eyes go wide as she crouch-runs over to the edge of the escarpment, peering out from behind some scrub trees. “God damnit! He’s burnin’ ‘em…”

Diana and Grace make eyes at each other behind her. Grace hardens herself with a steely look while Diana falters and grimaces, finally realizing what that smell is, putting two and two together with Jess’s story. They’d marched past a few large fire pits full of charred and blackened bodies, but the smell hadn’t been like this. It hadn’t been so...fresh. That had made her stomach churn, but _this_ makes it do an entire somersault.

He’s down there, Cook, with a surprisingly small retinue of Peggies cheering him on and milling about between the small trailers that dot the camp. His souped-up flamethrower blasts huge gouts of flame onto what can only be resistance prisoners.

Jess is already on one knee, bow brought up, aiming down the length of her arm.

_“Jess,”_ Grace hisses. _“This ain’t exactly the time to be puttin’ all your bets on your archery skills.”_

She falters and lowers the bow slightly, throwing a sneer over her shoulder. “I’m gonna put an arrow right through his fuckin’ pea brain. Just you watch…”

Diana swallows thickly and shakes her head and glances between them. “No, you’re not. You’re not gonna be able to put an arrow through that helmet. I mean you _might,_ but...Grace, I _know_ you can hit that fuel tank with a .50-cal.”

“You bet your ass I can,” she replies, already in the process of swinging her rifle up to her shoulder. She turns in a smooth arc, sighting through the scope. “Get ready, ladies.”

“Give him a taste of his own fuckin’ medicine,” Diana hisses gruffly.

Jess makes a disgruntled face but doesn’t argue, simply turns back and raises the bow once more. She grudgingly puts her sights on a much less heavily-armored cultist and waits for Grace to take her shot.

She doesn’t have to wait long. Cook’s frenzied monologue to his followers about burning impurities out of the weak gets abruptly cut off when, just like the other night at the Armstrong house, he gets blown to smithereens.

Diana is already halfway down the hill when the fuel tank on his back blows, Boomer racing along just in front of her, always keeping close. She skids behind one of the trailers and sticks her neck out, lifting the AR-C to fire off a string of shots at a cultist who starts running while he’s fumbling with a grenade. It flies from his hands when he takes a few bullets to the chest and plummets to the ground.

She hears a furious bark from her other side and turns just in time to see Boomer barreling into another dog that had been ready to sink its teeth into her throat. Both animals go rolling in a vicious ball of fur and fangs, and she silently thanks him before skirting along toward the backside of a tent just ahead.

The grenade explodes just as two other Peggies are scrambling through the open courtyard, sending them both crashing to the ground with massive wounds to their legs. An arrow from above finishes one of them off. A .50 caliber bullet finishes the other.

Boomer barks once to alert them that the coast is clear, running back to Diana with blood streaming down his muzzle and chest yet again. He looks awfully pleased with himself. She grimaces and pats the very top of his head, as much as she’s willing to touch at the moment.

Jess comes skidding down the path shortly after, Grace not far behind.

“That’s a better death than that piece of shit deserved,” she calls out as she stalks towards where some of Cook’s remains lay scattered, still burning.

“Fuckin’ freak. Fuckin’ _monster,”_ she hisses, kicking a chunk of him and sending it flying across the dirt. She stands there, bow clutched too tightly at her side, shoulders heaving.

Grace stops a few yards back; it’s obvious to Diana that the two of them knew each other before all this shit went down, but she is still unsure of how well and so she hangs back.

“I’m, uh...sorry I stole your thunder, Jess.”

Jess waves a hand impatiently, dismissing Grace’s apology. She clenches her fists and stares hard at the human-sized crater in the dirt at her feet. “It ain’t that.”

Diana finally makes her way out into the clearing, trying to keep her eyes off of Cook’s victims. It’s too gruesome. She never thought she’d actually have to _see_ something like this. Now, just today, she’s seen far too much of it. Between the burned bodies and the mutilated corpses strung up on billboards and signposts, she’s seen far too fucking much.

She beelines for what looks like an ammunition crate, trying to bite back the uneasy swell of nausea in her guts. She doesn’t exactly like the thought of not being able to rescue people; of being too late. She thinks back to John, inevitably. He’s still got Hudson. And she’d tried to call his bluff on that one.

“Dutch was right. Cook’s dead and...I don’t feel anything,” Jess finally admits rather weakly, all the piss and vinegar seeming to leach out of her all at once. “I don’t think I would have even if I _had_ been the one to kill him. All I ever wanted for _months_ was to find this guy. And now, I—I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Well, I’m sure Dutch would let you-”

_“Hell, no,”_ Jess interrupts the sniper as she spins on her heel, rounding on the other woman. “I ain’t goin’ into fuckin’ hiding.”

Grace puts a hand up in a show of conciliation, slings her rifle back over her shoulder by its strap. “Okay, just a suggestion-”

Diana rests her elbows on her knees from where she’s crouched beside the crate, craning her head back toward the two of them to finally put her two cents in. “Then help us. You know this ‘Eli’ guy Dutch talked about, right? Him and the Whitetails? Well, maybe we can all work together.”

Jess looks down at her feet for a few moments before angling her head to meet Diana’s gaze. “Dutch _has_ been right about a lot of shit lately. The cult. Eli, too...and maybe he’s right about you.”

Diana cocks an eyebrow, wondering what Dutch might have possibly said about her. Considering how comfortable Jess is with the fuck word, it is safe to assume he might have said they’d be like two angry, cantankerous little peas in a pod. She finds the thought oddly comforting. She likes having Grace around, surprisingly so, but she thinks the three of them might be able to accomplish a hell of a lot more.

The deputy turns back to the crate, reaches inside to start pulling out magazines and boxes of ammunition they can take with them. “Four of my colleagues were taken hostage when the cult brought down our chopper,” she calls back over her shoulder. “I know John has one of them back in the valley. I’m willing to bet Jacob’s got one or even two up here. I need to find out who and how I can stop these fuckers.”

Jess furrows her brows, contorting the scars that slice diagonally across her eye. “Well, I can get you in touch with Eli, but...look, the situation up here ain’t great, dep. Jacob and his fuckin’ Hunters—they been takin’ people for a while. From everywhere. Home, school, church, draggin’ ‘em right out of their cars in the middle of the road. The Whitetails are spread thin.”

“All the more reason to band up,” Diana replies as she crams the last of what will fit into her bulging backpack. She zips it up, stands and slings it back over her shoulder, grunting at the weight.

It’s midmorning now and the sun’s starting to burn, despite the chill in the air up here in the hills. Diana makes her way back to the other two women, snagging her sunglasses off the brim of her trucker hat and sliding them on over her eyes.

Jess reaches out to offer the deputy her hand. “Well. Alright then. We get back to the mill - I’m sure the others have called in some of the Whitetails by now to lock the place down - and then we’ll see about gettin’ you an interview with the big fuckin’ cheese.”

Diana nods as she clasps Jess’s hand in her own, giving it a single solid shake. “Deal.”

They descend the mountain path one at a time like a string of ducklings, bouts of silence punctuated here and there by random bursts of idle chatter. Jess and Grace seem to get along well, and Diana finds herself thankful for that; she’s used to most other women being catty and disingenuous and it is surprisingly refreshing to finally see some supportive behavior for once. It makes her think about Joey again.

She’s going to have to go back to the valley at some point, and soon.

Jess tells them bits and pieces of how she ended up alone in the Whitetails; she keeps more mentions of Cook limited from the rest of her story, though it is clear he was the one that had kidnapped both her and her parents. She had escaped, by herself. And somehow, she’d been stealthy enough to evade capture for months before she’d attempted to free the prisoners being held at the lumber mill. Instead, she’d ended up joining them.

Diana mostly just listens to the two women chatting. It’s interesting, the way this cult has impacted these people. They rolled in and planted their roots and began converting, and like some kind of biblical disaster,they uprooted all else that lay in their path in the name of their God.

In a way, Diana’s life has been nothing but one long, drawn-out disaster. She hears their stories and she sympathizes with them, but it is a kind of pain she’d long ago become accustomed to. Loss of loved ones. Loss of control.

It’s probably why she’s so impulsive, because she’d _never_ had control. Even when she thought she did. No reason to try and maintain it. She had learned to adapt as the situation changed. Make do. Survive.

But she can’t do that anymore. All of a sudden it’s not just herself she’s looking out for. She has to coordinate with other people, plan her movements, help other people plan _theirs_. She has to be reliable. And she needs to have people she can rely on.

Their radios simultaneously crackle to life just as the lumber mill comes back into sight down below between the trees. Diana reaches for hers, thinking it’s probably Dutch or Jerome.

_“There’s someone out there pretending to be a soldier. They are killing our brothers and sisters and putting this project in jeopardy.”_

Diana frowns down at the CB, then looks up between the other two women, who’ve both stopped. She sees a glint in Jess’s eyes that hasn’t been there before.

Fear?

_“I want this coward to know that they have my attention. My hunters are coming for you.”_

_“Shit,”_ Jess hisses, reaching up to tuck some stray hair in under the hood of her sweatshirt. “We need to move. You do _not_ wanna get put in that fuckin’ chair.”

_“What?”_ Diana fumbles to clip the CB back onto her jeans before she hurries along after Jess, who’s turned and started making her way double-time down the path.

“Jacob’s fuckin’ program!” Jess is running now, down the hill, Grace and Diana just behind. “He’s doin’ some crazy kinda mind control shit! That’s how he indoctrinates you!”

“I know he’s been doing some weird shit out here, but actual mind control ain’t _real,_ Jess-”

The hunter sneaks a quick glare back over her shoulder at Grace. “Well it sure ain’t any _normal_ fuckin’ boot camp! You haven’t been out here, you got no idea what they’re doing!”

“So what the hell are we supposed to do!?” Diana asks, strained, mildly panicking now at Jess’s sudden and violent reaction to the voice on the radio.

“He probably heard the mill got shut down! Jacob’s fuckin’ ruthless,” Jess yells back, dodging through a small stand of trees, “those hunters are probably already on their way to try and take it back—we gotta help!”

“I thought you said we had to _move!?”_

“We will! But I made a promise I’d help try and stop ‘em from takin’ any more people, and the lumber mill’s been theirs for too fuckin’ long now! They’re gonna want it back!”

“What are you thinkin’, deputy,” Grace asks, chancing a glance over as they crash between a few more trees.

The sound of truck engines revving starts to echo through the open space below the mountains. The lumber mill looms before them now.

_“Fuck,”_ Diana hisses, reaching up to lift her hat and quickly swipe her forearm across her forehead. “I’m thinking I really wish you wouldn’t let me make these kinds of decisions, Grace!”

The first few rattles of gunfire echo up towards them and Diana can’t help a grimace, but she’s already steeling herself. Jess is right; the mill is obviously where the cult was holding prisoners, and if they can help the Whitetails keep it, it will be some kind of a boost for the resistance.

“There were mounted guns on that building, right!?”

“Hell, yeah!”

“Fuck it. You two hang back in the trees and cover me, I’m gonna try and get to those guns!”

The three women split off from each other to join the fray up at the mill. No one knows what to expect from Jacob’s hunters.

All they can do is trust each other.


	9. Heavy Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hear her calling ‘come to me’  
> Thought of her won’t let me be  
> Go to the valley, climb the hill  
> Whatever it takes darling, you know I will
> 
> The Black Keys, Heavy Soul

“She’s taken the marina _and_ made contact with the holdouts in the jail. How was this allowed to happen? We are here to _save_ souls, not allow them to threaten us and—and continue blindly paving the way to their own destruction!” 

Joseph sighs and leans down over the austere wooden table, flattening his palms against the top. 

It is Sunday, a sermon night, and his heralds have gathered at the compound to hear the word as they always do. But the sermon is over now. He’s gathered them into his own living quarters, sparse but for basic amenities, shelves full of books, and several portraits of the four of them. 

He looks between each, searching for answers. 

Jacob is the first to react. He leans forward in his chair, brows raising at Joseph’s rather sudden outburst. “After her little stint in the valley, she smartened up. Started moving hard and fast.” 

His eyes flick ever so briefly to John, slyly rebuking his youngest brother for letting her go while she was still at her weakest, before she’d started gathering allies. “She’s not stupid, Joseph—and she’s not _weak._ She knows you want her,” he says with an air of almost easy-going assurance. “And now we know she doesn’t want to come easy. But,” he sighs out with a slight shrug, “that means nothing.” 

Joseph gives his older brother a baleful look from behind yellow-tinted aviators. His gaze slides to Faith, who stands off to the side, head bowed, hands clasped loosely. “And what do you have to say? Did you at least give her a vision before she beat your faithful back from the jail?” 

She pauses, bows her head a little lower. “No, Father.” 

John’s been unusually quiet all night, but the corner of his mouth ticks up ever so slightly. He has his hands threaded in his lap where he sits across from Jacob. One leg bounces up and down with restless kinetic energy. He can’t say he’s entirely displeased that the deputy and her little gaggle of girlfriends managed to breeze through both Jacob and Faith’s territory without being subdued. 

“Stop gloating, John,” Joseph snips.

“Yes, John,” Jacob drawls, angling his head to look at John sideways. “It’s _unbecoming.”_

John’s brow twitches. He unthreads his hands, places them on the tabletop over the edge of the map spread out there, spelling out _Eden Gate_ with his tattooed fingers. “I am not _gloating_. I simply have faith in what the Father has told me.” He shifts his gaze to Joseph. “That I will be the one to lead her into the flock.”

“John,” Joseph warns, clearly sensing the pride swollen up inside him. The voice has never been as clear-cut as that; but, as usual, John hears only what he wants. 

“She may have gathered up a few friends, but Jacob is right. That means nothing. She wants her colleagues, and that means she’ll have to try and come for _us,”_ John recites, leaning forward in his chair and tapping a finger against the map to punctuate himself. “And _that_ means she will make herself vulnerable. We have our faith, we have our flock; we have our conviction that what we are doing is _right_. Honestly,” he adds with a small scoff, “she can’t possibly _stop_ the Project.” 

Jacob shrugs, acceding to John’s point and glancing back to Joseph. “If I get her first, I’m not givin’ her up. I’ll make a Hunter of her. I’ve heard about the way she kills. Almost like the _wrath of God,”_ he muses with a faint smile on his face.

They all know Jacob’s faith lies with Joseph and _not_ with God, and it is a wound that pains their self-made leader daily. None of them would be here together if not for God. Joseph has tried so hard with his brothers, but the one still turns his back on the greater truth while the other uses it to excuse his own transgressions.

John frowns, curling his hand into a fist. He bites his tongue against the childish retort that threatens to escape. But the more he dwells on it, the more he knows he is right. This is a test that has been put before him and he will not allow Jacob or Faith to be the ones who bring the deputy to heel. He can’t.

“They were heading back to the valley last time my people saw them,” Faith chimes in, quiet and obeisant as she is off to the side, looking up towards the men gathered at the table. She pauses, her lip curling. “The Drubman woman destroyed two of my shrines on the way with that _stupid_ helicopter of hers...”

John’s gaze flicks up to her. He notices Faith clench her fists at her sides, remembers the fact that she is ten years younger than him; a child, really. A child given leave to play with some very dangerous toys. But, oh yes, she had built a statue in Joseph’s honor, hadn’t she? Stroking his ego, playing the pet. John’s ire spikes briefly and he has to swallow it down. 

He clears his throat and tries to offer up an easy smile. “Excellent. I have convoys on the roads and Chosen up in the sky. We’ll spot her.”

“If you do manage to lay hands on her again,” Jacob leans over the table, pointing a weathered finger at John, “send her up to me. No more moonlit strolls in the river, hm?” 

John narrows his eyes, but keeps the smile. His gaze only slides back to Faith in response. “What about _you,_ hm? Don’t want to enter the ring for a chance at scoring yet another priestess for the shrines? Why not tear open each other’s necks for a chance at the wily deputy,” he asks, looking back and forth between them. “Surely that will help our cause.” 

Jacob sighs and lets his eyes roll. He has little patience for John’s flair for the dramatic. 

Faith’s lip curls once again and she raises her chin defiantly. “I only want to set her on the path. It’s the Father’s will that will be done after that.” 

Joseph can’t help the spark of pride that rises up within him. 

_His Faith._

The others never held a candle to her devotion. She became exactly what the Project needed—clearly _still_ needs. A gentle reminder. A soother of wounds. A pacifier of beasts. A siren to those who needed to hear _something_. 

John feels his nails digging into the flesh of his palm where his fist is clenched so tightly. The sycophantic little bitch. Always stroking Joseph’s ego. 

And _he_ is the one who gets reprimanded for his pride. 

She has proven herself so adept at masking all that she was before, he can’t help but not to trust her now. She may not be blood, but Joseph fawns over her as if she is, as if she’s in possession of the blood of the fucking lamb itself. She is _angelic_. And it makes John want to strangle her. 

He heard her confession, those years ago when she’d first come to join the Project. He knows all about the poorly coded ‘soul-searching,’ the weakness; the coke, the molly, the heroin. The hopelessness. How she’d been so _willing_ to turn herself completely inside-out for Joseph’s approval. 

Hadn’t he tried to do exactly the same? 

  
  


Their meeting ends shortly after. 

John walks swiftly through the compound once Joseph releases them back to their duties. He’d known the deputy was headed back for the valley even before _Rachel_ had mentioned it. Most likely to Fall’s End, but he needs an update to be sure.

“John.” 

He stops himself short, grimaces before turning back around to face Jacob. He puts on a strained smile, reaches up to brush some imaginary dust from the front of his vest. “What can I do for you, Jacob?” 

“You don’t honestly believe any of the bullshit you were spouting in there, do you?” 

John’s smile falters. “And what bullshit would that be?” 

Jacob stops a few feet from him, crossing his arms. “About this little no-account cop being meant for you. If she gets away from you again are you really going to fight one of us over her, John?”

He has this slow, menacing way about him when he talks that John doesn’t remember from their childhood. Granted, he’d been very young, but his brother is...different now. They’re both different. 

John straightens himself, tugs at the lapels of his jacket. “No, I am not going to _fight you_. I am simply trying to let the will of the Father come to pass. He said she needed to reach Atonement-”

“You’re not the only one of us he spoke to, brother.” 

“No, but I was the _first,”_ John insists, taking a brash step forward. “And frankly, _Faith_ needs another Angel like _I_ need another fucking farm to harvest.”

Jacob has to chuckle at that. He nods his head, looks down at where he toes a boot into the dirt. “And what about me? You gonna come to my door and blow it down if I catch the little piggy first?”

John blinks, glances back behind to where his truck sits waiting. “Of course not.” 

“So we’re square,” Jacob asks, raising his gaze from where his head is bowed, looking at his brother pointedly because it’s not _really_ a question. 

John scoffs softly. “We are square. She’s back in the valley. And she won’t be getting away this time. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he says and takes a few steps back, spreading his hands at his sides, “I’ve got a sinner to catch.” He gives Jacob a much more meaningful smile, full of teeth, before turning and walking away. 

“Best of luck to you, John,” comes the response from behind him. 

  
  
  


**. . .**

  
  
  


Diana is tired. 

After taking out Jacob’s reinforcements at the lumber mill, they’d hijacked another car and made a mad dash southeast, too high-strung about getting caught by Jacob’s people to stick it out and try to meet up with Eli Palmer. 

And they’d driven straight into a roadblock and a marina full of Peggies. 

Not ideal, but after some risky maneuvering and more than a few bloody wounds and bruises - and she’d lost another pair of sunglasses and torn open the knees on her jeans, _god damnit_ \- they’d managed to free Adelaide Drubman _and_ get her her damn helicopter back. They’d had to chase the stupid thing for _hours_ waiting for the pilot to finally land. 

The four of them and Boomer ended up close to the Hope County Jail after that, which, lo and behold, had also been under attack. Diana’d had her first experience fighting Faith’s Angels, and it had been _horrendous._ They were so lost to the world, they kept fighting even while they were bleeding out; like rabid animals, too numb or crazy to even feel their own pain. Only headshots seemed to put them down for good. 

Her reunion with Whitehorse had been strained after so much bloodshed, but she was surprised how _good_ it had felt seeing him safe; or, at least, out of the Seeds’ clutches. She’d found out Faith had Marshal Burke, which meant Jacob was holding on to Pratt up north. 

Physically, she _hadn’t_ felt good being in the Henbane; they’d driven by huge fields of that jimson weed the cult used to make the Bliss, and Diana had suffered every second they were near it. The pollen was apparently enough on its own to mildly intoxicate her. She had headaches, the swimmy sparkles in her vision, and she felt nauseous almost constantly until they were back in cleaner air. 

She didn’t want to mention to the others that she was also quite sure she’d started hallucinating a few times; she’d seen Faith Seed, dancing and twirling all by herself out in the fields as they’d driven by. She’d seen a few animals that didn’t look quite right; and after she’d blink or look away for a moment, a new animal had taken its place, the first simply vanished into thin air. It was fucking _unnerving,_ to say the least. 

She never thought she’d feel relief at crossing back into Holland Valley, but there it was. Until they’d narrowly avoided getting blown to shit by an armed convoy of trucks on the road. If not for the sleek mounted guns on Adelaide’s chopper, they’d have been roadkill. 

They’d seen a few planes up in the sky too, but no way to know who they were flying for. They hadn’t attacked, so the women came to the conclusion that it was cult surveillance. The planes stayed well away from Addie and Tulip, never radioed in, never made a sound other than the steady, throaty hum of their engines as they flew by. 

But now, now the women can _finally_ breathe again—literally and figuratively. They’re safely sequestered in Fall’s End, with guards from the steadily growing resistance posted at all corners of the town. They’ve got Mary May’s illicit liquor, they’ve got a jukebox, and the bar is surprisingly full. 

Not _full_ full, but there’s more people in there than Diana’s particularly comfortable with. Especially when they all want to slap her on the back and tell her what a great job she’s doing; how _inspiring_ she is. It puts a sour taste in her mouth. That could be the Jack Daniels she’s been drinking, though. 

She stands outside the Spread Eagle, meandering, limping a bit on one bad leg that got grazed by a bullet. Smoking a cigarette, tired but loosened up from the booze; anxious and relieved and indignant and completely, utterly _lost_ all at the same time. These people already _have_ leaders in Jerome, Whitehorse, Eli Palmer, Mary May, Tracey Lader—there are _several_ people in Hope County who have already proven that fighting back is an option. 

So she wonders what makes _her_ so goddamn special. Other than her seemingly uncanny knack for narrowly avoiding death and dismemberment, that is. 

She’s got her mouth open in an ‘Oh’ shape, puffing out crude little smoke rings into the crisp night air. She stands in the middle of the empty street, arms crossed tight over her chest to fight back the frigid nip in the air, looks up at the stars that carpet the sky. 

And suddenly her radio crackles to life. 

_“Good evening, deputy.”_

It was going to happen eventually. She knew it would. She doesn’t respond. 

_“You’re looking a little chilled. There’s quite a breeze that sweeps down through the valley, sometimes. I would suggest you get yourself a coat.”_

A partially-formed smoke ring gets blown into a shapeless cloud as she sputters. Diana blinks, looks down at the radio on her hip and then immediately grabs for the butt of the pistol at her thigh. She spins in the street, scanning the houses and the general store and all the dark alleys in between. 

She tosses her cigarette and uses the free hand to retrieve the radio, brings it up to her lips. “Where the fuck are you?” 

_“Check your ten o’clock.”_

Her eyes and the barrel of the gun both move to the left, toward the mechanic’s garage at the end of the block. She wets her lips, squinting into the darkness between the dim light coming from the bar’s windows. 

_“Up.”_

Her brow furrows, gaze following his direction to the roof of the building. She can just barely see him up there, a dark silhouette against the stars. John gives her a friendly little wave. 

Her lip curls into a sneer. “What the fuck is this? If it’s an ambush why are you _calling_ me first!?” 

_“Because it is not an ambush, deputy. I came here alone. Unarmed.”_

“Bullshit.” 

_“I’d like you to come up and talk to me.”_

“Or I can _shoot_ you, you’ll fall, and then we can talk down here.” 

There is a pause. 

_“I...suppose you could do that. I’m willing to admit, I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot-”_

Diana can’t help a harsh cackle at that; she doesn’t even need to hit the talk button, she’s sure he probably heard it just fine on his own from up there. 

_“Which is_ why _I came here, tonight, as soon as I could. Just to_ talk _. I know there are patrols. I know your friends are all inside that bar. You’ve got me outgunned and outnumbered here, Diana. But_ if _I’d come to kill you...you’d be dead already.”_

She huffs out an indignant breath, closing her eyes for a few moments and conceding his point. At this rate, the fucking cigarette breaks are going to kill her faster than the firefights she keeps running into.

She angrily clips the radio back onto her hip and walks as straight as she can over to the garage; even though she assumes he saw her limping out of the bar, she has to keep up some pretense. 

Diana has to go down the alley to reach the ladder that runs to the roof, eyes flicking upwards every few seconds to watch for him and what he might do. She reluctantly holsters her pistol before hauling herself up the rungs, and she is suddenly very thankful for the whiskey because this would have hurt a hell of a lot more otherwise. 

As soon as she’s off the ladder and onto the roof the pistol comes back out. She points it at him with no pretenses, leans back against the safety wall with a sigh of relief when the weight’s off her leg. “What the fuck do you want?” 

John’s watched her the whole time since she came up over the lip of the roof, and he can’t help a smile as she levels the gun at him. He reaches up to wipe his palm down over his mouth, smoothing his beard. “I wanted to...apologize.”

She scoffs again and angles her head, incredulous, dark hair streaming across her face as a burst of wind blows through. “I find that thoroughly fucking hard to believe.” 

“Well that’s what I’m doing, deputy. I know my tactics may seem a bit heavy-handed, but you must understand— _we are out of time.”_

“No—no, I don’t have to understand _shit_. Just because _you_ think the world’s going to end doesn’t mean it’s a fucking fact. You know,” she says, growing more vehement, waving the gun slightly, “if you were just _peaceful?_ None of this would be a problem. If you just took the people who _wanted_ to go and locked yourselves up in your fucking bunkers, none of this bullshit would be happening.” 

He tilts his head, the smile widening ever so slightly, straightening the lapels of his fine leather coat. “You cannot repopulate a society without _bodies,_ Diana. This isn’t even about our beliefs so much as it is about simple _population dynamics._ We need to save as many as we can,” he explains slowly, with an air of condescension that sets her teeth on edge, “by whatever means necessary. The time for peaceful persuasion is gone; _we’ve run out of it._ These people would not make the choice,” he recites as he extends an arm out towards the rest of the little town, “so we are making it for them.” 

She shakes her head, keeping the gun on him as he starts to pace back and forth across the rooftop. “You can’t just give yourself leave to kidnap people, threaten them, take away their free will! It’s the only fucking thing we have!” 

John scoffs haughtily, clasps his hands behind his back and eyes her sideways. “When was the last time you ever felt _free,_ Diana? Hm? _Truly_ free. Unencumbered by the shackles of a society so _flawed,_ so... _despicable._ You’re already drowning in it, but the weight of your own vice and sin drags you further like a cement block chained to your ankles. Your bones are being crushed and _you can’t even feel it.”_

She blinks, bludgeoned into silence by his words. She knows the answer to his question, though. Only once in her life has she ever felt that distinct and almost mythical weightlessness. That _freedom._

Turning back from the safety of the trees just once to watch the fire burn that house to ash before she’d run. 

But she will not admit that to him. 

He takes her silence as some kind of victory, smirking and bowing his head, taking a few steps closer to where she still leans. “I know you understand, Diana. I know this world has been unkind to you.”

She grimaces and raises the pistol higher in warning when he comes closer. “So what? So have _you.”_

“Which is why I wanted to apologize,” he reiterates pointedly. “Because I know how you feel. And I _know_ that if you’d just... _let go_ …take a leap of faith...you’d understand what the Project can offer you.” 

“You seem to think you know an awful lot, John Seed. It’s a little too _presumptuous_ for my taste, if I’m being honest.” 

“Oh, _big word,”_ he says with a small chuckle, flashing that smile at her again. “And you seem to think you’re very smart for someone who never even finished high school.” 

“I still got my GED, asshole,” she quips back with a sneer. 

He scoffs, endlessly amused with her, it seems. “Then let’s see what that GED can do, hm? You must know the state of the world. You must see the news. _Something is coming._ Answer me this, deputy. Why would I be here, trying to strike a bargain with you, if this weren’t deadly serious?”

“Because you’re a lunatic and a monster, and probably also a sociopath.” 

“Would it ease your conscience if I agreed with you? According to your own reasoning we’re _both_ monsters, Diana,” he says, voice lowering as he takes another step towards her. “I think you’ve proven that much, the way you’ve mowed down so many of my brothers and sisters without so much as a second thought.” 

She pushes herself away from the wall, straightening up and tightening her grip on the pistol. “That may be true, but that doesn’t make us the same, _or_ prove whatever fucked up connection you’re trying to make. Right now, I am _surviving._ The monster in _me_...I let it out once and it was so horrific I vowed I would never let it happen again. You let yours out, and it _never went back._ ” 

Diana crosses the rest of the distance between them, pushes the barrel of the gun right up against his abdomen, where she knows it would be a killing shot. “ _Do not_ tell me we’re the fucking same.” 

John just smiles down at her, open and inviting, raising his empty hands at his sides in conciliation. “Go on, then. This is what you _want,_ isn’t it? Go ahead and negate every statement you’ve so vehemently made against me. Embrace that _wrath_. Embrace the monster you think you’ve locked away inside you.” 

And in that moment, she knows.

She can’t do it. 

Even though he still has Joey locked away, even though killing him would remove a sizable obstacle from her path. She can’t pull the trigger. 

Because he’s right. He’s here, unarmed, offering up no resistance. If she shoots him now, she is exactly what he says she is. 

She bares her teeth like an animal, furious at the position he’s put her in. Finally, after several tense moments of silence, she lowers the gun. “You fucking bastard.” 

She doesn’t mean for it to sound as tired as it does. But she _is_ tired. She’s tired of these dangerous little games he insists on playing with her, tired of the Bliss, tired of Joseph and the looming threat he conjures, tired of this whole fucked up, unthinkable situation. 

She goes to turn away from him and suddenly one of his hands curls over her shoulder with the clear intention of keeping her close. He cups her cheek with the other and brings the first hand up to do the same, cradling her face, not forceful as he had been back in the bunker, but still…persuasive. Almost frightfully so. 

“You stumble along the path to the truth as if you were a _child,_ Diana. You ignore that which you do not wish to look at. But you are _not_ completely lost. Are you afraid to put your faith in something because you think that you are beyond salvation?”

She blinks, taken aback by his hands and the unexpected gentleness in his tone and the sudden spike of adrenaline that courses through her. The mask he wears now looks downright _tender,_ and she suddenly feels just like Alice, tumbling forever down the rabbit hole. “I-”

“I thought _I_ was—when my brother came to me,” he says, brushing some hair away from over her eye with a thumb. “I thought I was lost forever, with only my own demons to keep me company. But he _showed me._ He showed me the truth and then he marked me and everything changed. And I can do that for _you_. All you have to say is-”

“Hey, dep, uh...where the hell are you? Who are you talkin’ to?” 

Diana pulls away from him quickly, startled out of whatever strange, heady tension had her eyes glued to his. “Nobody! I just thought I saw, um...well, I guess I don’t know _what_ I saw,” she offers up haltingly. “I’m up here, on the roof,” she calls out over her shoulder before moving back to the edge to peer down.

Jess cocks an eyebrow and cranes her neck up. “D’you see Peggies?” 

_“No!_ No, no Peggies.”

“Holy shit, d’you think you saw a fuckin’ _squatch_ out there?! Hold on, I’m comin’ up-”

 _“No!_ No, I’m coming down, I’m pretty sure there’s just some guy out there in a fucking furry suit or something-” 

Diana glances back at John and narrows her eyes before swinging her leg up over the top of the ladder to start climbing down. _“You better get the fuck out of here,”_ she hisses before disappearing behind the edge of the roof. 

Her head reappears a second later so she can throw in a muttered “asshole” at the end for good measure, and then she is gone from his sight.

“Oh shit, maybe it’s Sharky,” John hears Jess Black rambling drunkenly down below. “Have you arrested him yet? I’m pretty sure he’s like...almost gone _full_ furry, you know…”

John’s smile returns as he watches the two women walk back to the bar. They’d been interrupted, which was unfortunate, but there had been _progress_ in those few seconds before she’d yanked herself out of his grasp. Not much, maybe not even anything noteworthy, but he’d seen it in her eyes. 

There’d been a spark of recognition. Enough to make him think this stupid foray into enemy territory might actually be worth it. He thinks back to his brother’s words and almost has to laugh; maybe Joseph is right. He’d molded himself to become a creature of grandiloquence and charisma, but in recent years, he’s let those traits fall by the wayside in favor of more...tactile pursuits.

The deputy, he is coming to realize, is something like a feral barn cat. Treat her with violence, and she pays it back in kind. But if he can find some morsel to offer her, some kindness...some hope, maybe they won’t need to keep meeting with knives and guns at each other’s throats. 


	10. Should I Stay or Should I Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day it’s fine and next it’s black
> 
> So if you want me off your back
> 
> Well come on and let me know
> 
> Should I stay or should I go?
> 
> If I go there will be trouble
> 
> And if I stay it will be double
> 
> -The Clash, Should I Stay or Should I Go

Diana has a hard time focusing on the plans the others start making.

They’re gathered in the bar, huddled in over that map of Hope County. It’s got scribbled notes and circles all over it, red and black to denote whether each area is held by Peggies or the Resistance, respectively.

The Woodsons had been a lost cause, their property now crossed out with a red X; by the time the women had finally gotten round to check on the farm, it had been marked and ransacked by the cult and its occupants executed. Even the pigs were gone, presumably taken for slaughter to feed the Project. It had been a harsh blow to their otherwise successful run up through the base of the mountains and back down through the Henbane.

And now the holdouts of Fall’s End are determined not to let the loss be in vain. They’ve got other cult-controlled landmarks circled, a few known prepper bunkers starred. They throw out the names Sharky and Hurk Drubman again, and Diana is drawn out of her anxious thoughts of free will and salvation and that _fucking cologne._

“Hey—those two, you said they’re pretty wild, right?” Diana insinuates herself into the circle, glancing around the group. “Like to play around with explosives, little to no regard for the safety of others?”

Jess snorts loudly.

Grace makes a face, curling her lip slightly. “Yeah, that’s Hurk and Sharky.”

“Back at the jail, Tracey Lader asked me to blow up that big fuckin’ ugly statue,” Diana says. “I didn’t think much of it ‘cause I had no idea how I’d even do something like that, but...do you think they could?”

The others look back and forth at each other.

Jerome shrugs one shoulder, looking a little apprehensive. “Well, I suppose, if anyone could come up with the firepower to do something like that, it would be those two. Though—if we could pull that off, it might really put some fear into Joseph. And it could prove a useful distraction for infiltrating one of their bunkers,” he muses, meeting Diana’s eyes with a meaningful look. “If we could liberate the people being held in even one of them…”

“It’ll put a big fuckin’ target on our backs,” Jess chimes in from beside Mary May, glancing around the group.

“We already got a _big fuckin’ target_ on our backs, Jess,” Grace cuts in, cool as usual.

Diana shrugs, looking around again. “Grace has a point. Look, if they’re still managing on their own, they must have something useful they can bring to the group. So maybe we should go pick them up. I don’t really want to go crawling back through those fucking Bliss fields, but—maybe if I can fly in with Adelaide-”

They all look over as the door of the Spread Eagle opens and said woman’s voice floats in from just outside where she’s been smoking a cigarette, almost like she’s been waiting for her cue. “Hey, folks! We got shitbirds incoming!”

 _“What!?”_ Mary May slams her palm down on the bar top and suddenly the little gang scatters, rushing from the bar to the windows, pulling curtains back and checking their weapons.

Sure enough, there are convoys of cult trucks parked at both intersections just past either edge of the small town center, blocking the roads in and out.

Diana curses and makes for the door, yanking it open further and poking her head around. “Addie! Get to that fucking helicopter! Right now!”

“Deputy, you need to go!”

 _“What!?”_ Diana pins a hand against the doorframe and spins around, leveling a half-frantic gaze at Jerome, indignant and unsure of whether she’d even heard him correctly.

“The way we found you—John must have sent them here to take you back,” he clarifies, moving away from one window to cross the room and go behind the bar. “And we can’t afford to lose you now!”

He disappears behind the bar for a few seconds before coming back up with an assault rifle he’d grabbed from somewhere underneath. “If Adelaide’s going for the chopper, _you_ go with her! Get back to the Henbane and get those two reprobates!”

A low whistle comes from just outside the door. “John wants you _real_ bad...you ever considered he’s maybe in some kinda love with you!?”

Diana whips her head back towards where Adelaide still stands outside. _“I said get to the fucking helicopter!”_

 _“What about you!?”_ Adelaide snaps back, her own rifle out and at the ready.

 _“Listen up, sinners,”_ a voice booms from a megaphone. _“John’s willing to offer you a deal, and we suggest you take it! Hand over the deputy and we won’t take the whole town!”_

 _“Fuck,”_ Diana hisses. “Just go! If they see me coming out with you they’ll take us both! Pick me up at that old silo south of here!”

“Alright, sugar—I hope you know what you’re doin’! Sure you don’t want me to strafe these fucktrumpets on my way out?”

Jerome comes up beside Diana then, the rifle clutched tightly to his chest. “And the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth…”

Diana whips her head back around, looking at him with furrowed brows and wide eyes like he might have just grown three heads and an extra leg.

“They’re going to want a fight once they realize you’re gone, deputy. So _yes,_ Adelaide, I would suggest you make a few passes before you go!”

 _“Fucking Christ,”_ Diana growls, “I can’t just leave you to fight them on your own!”

“You can and you will,” Jerome replies steadily as he puts a hand on her shoulder and turns them back toward the inside of the bar. “We’ve defended the town before and we can surely defend it again. There’s a back door, just through the kitchen. Use it.”

Diana makes an indignant sound but he simply pushes her forward. She looks over toward where Jess and Grace stand, and they just wave their hands at her.

“Get outta here, dep,” Jess commands. “We’ll be in touch once these fucks are taken care of.”

“You fucking better,” she spits before finally pushing her legs to move. Gunfire starts up outside and she stops herself, turning around.

 _“Go!”_ Grace and Mary May both shout at the same time.

 _“God damnit!”_ She runs past the bar and shoulders her way through the door that opens into the kitchen. She sees the back entrance just in front and to her left and makes for it, clenching her jaw tight as gunfire starts reverberating through the building.

She didn’t ask for this. She didn’t ask these people to put her life above theirs, put their own on the line for her. This is stupid. What if John’s people take Fall’s End? What if her and Addie manage to get the woman’s son and nephew and come back to an empty, burned-out ruin?

She desperately fights the urge to stop and turn around even as she keeps running, dodging between buildings and trying to keep an eye out over her shoulder. It seems like the Peggies are thoroughly occupied with her cohorts, though, as the continuous sound of gunfire has not stopped since she busted out of the bar.

 _“Fuck—shit—”_ she repeats to herself almost like a mantra as she heads east, out around the road and the convoy so that hopefully she can cross the small bridge that will take her south over the part of the river that cuts through the valley.

She crosses quickly over a dirt road and hops a rickety fence into a field, noticing too late the strange humps in the earth that form a line parallel with the edge of the field. Her initial reaction is to think that it’s the result of some farmer who’d started tilling before this whole thing went down and never got the chance to finish.

Until one foot comes down and breaks straight through the loose layer of sticks and mulch and suddenly she’s tumbling into a fucking _trench_. She shrieks and lands on her face in the dirt at the bottom, all the detritus spilling down on top of her.

After the shock wears off the pain starts to set in. She cries out and plants her palms into the dirt and leaves, spitting out little pieces of it.

She hears a plane fly by overhead and it sends a fresh spike of adrenaline through her. She has to get the fuck out of here.

She tries to get up onto her knees but the fall knocked the wind out of her; when she tries to breathe it hurts, and all she can manage are shallow, rapid intakes of air.

Diana cranes her neck up to see just how deep she’s fallen; it’s about all she can manage at the moment. The pit has to be a good six or seven feet, and she wonders how the fuck the Peggies had time to dig it.

Between all the bursts of gunfire she still hears coming back from the direction of Fall’s End, another sound breaks through, getting louder; it sounds like a truck engine.

 _“Fuck,”_ she wheezes and finally pushes herself up off the bottom, raining down sticks and mulch from her back as she straightens. She finally manages a full breath and scrambles to get to her feet, pointedly ignoring the pain that lances through her.

She steels herself, making sure the strap of her AR-C is still slung securely over her shoulder before she stumbles to the wall of the pit and looks up toward the edge.

Gritting her teeth, she retreats backwards til her heels hit the opposite wall. And then she tries to give herself as much momentum as she can, lunging forward and jumping.

She manages to get her arms over the lip of the pit and tries to dig the toes of her boots into the earthen wall to scramble up, but she just can’t get any footing. It crumbles away and sends her hurtling back down and she curses and kicks as the sound of the truck gets louder and louder until it feels like it’s going to drive straight into the fucking pit she’s trapped in.

She rattles in a few more heavy breaths and does the only thing she can think of—slings the rifle off from over her shoulder and pulls back the pin, aiming it towards where the sound of the truck’s engine suddenly cuts off somewhere above her.

She wets her lips at the sound of a door opening and closing, spreading her feet shoulder-width apart, trying badly not to shake. She may only have one chance to put down whoever’s found her.

Diana recognizes the careless whistling that starts up after the door shuts. It’s the same tune he whistled when she’d been down in his bunker. Her lips curl into a grimace and she tightens her grip on the rifle with new surety, the fear suddenly gone and replaced with an icy fury that steels her. She doesn’t have time to wonder why she was so scared of any random Peggie coming for her, but not of him.

John comes into view over the edge of the pit, a revolver clutched in one hand. He stops, making a chuffed little sound and breaking out into what _could_ be called a radiant smile if the circumstances were vastly different. “Ah,” he breathes out in a wistful sigh, “a rabbit in my trap.”

Diana sneers and levels the gun at him, the reassuring weight of the butt pressed firmly against her shoulder. _“Pit_ _traps!?_ What is this, fucking _Apocalypse Now!?”_

John scoffs and taps the barrel of his gun against his thigh before squatting down there at the edge, lording over her. “Modified bear traps. You’re welcome, by the way. Normally, they’d be full of spikes.”

She emits a strangled bark of a laugh, shaking her head quickly. “You’re a fucking lunatic.”

“No. What I _am,_ is deeply offended. After our conversation was so rudely interrupted, I thought I’d hear from you. Another pathetic demand for Hudson, a biting remark, a threat; _something_. I - maybe foolishly - had even started entertaining the thought that we were about to reach some kind of an _understanding.”_

She really can’t say why she doesn’t just shoot him. Point-blank range as it is, the bullets would tear him to pieces. She only scoffs and shakes her head again instead.

“I don’t like being interrupted, Diana. And I don’t much fancy being ignored, either.”

“So, what, you sent your little army to come _pick me up!?_ Not a good way to make amends, John-”

“Says the woman stuck in a hole because she _ran-”_

“A hole you _fucking dug for me!”_ She tightens her grip on the rifle once more, nudging the barrel up some. “If you don’t get me out of here _right now_ I will fucking shoot you and get out eventually, anyway. It’s your choice, asshole.”

John sighs and stands back up, turns and paces a few steps at the edge of the pit. He’s clearly not worried about getting shot. “It’s just _one word,_ deputy. I mean,” he pauses, stops, turns back and looks down at her. “Do you think those people appreciate you? Do you think they regard you as a _hero?_ I wonder if they’ll think the same when the Collapse is upon us and they are rolling in the dirt with the life draining out of them-”

She pulls the trigger and a single bullet rips through the air, though it goes wide, buzzing past his shoulder. He doesn’t even flinch, only closes his eyes and makes a pained expression at the sudden crack of the shot, much too loud as close as they are.

“I only want to help you,” he says a few moments later, opening his eyes and leveling them down at her.

“Then get me the fuck out of here.”

“Only if you give me the gun. _All_ of your guns.”

“Fuck you.”

John can’t help a laugh, spreading his hands at his sides, shoulders going up in strained amusement. “Well, we appear to be at an _impasse,_ then, deputy.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Why don’t you just shoot me and fill in this fucking hole and be done with it?”

John tilts his head. “Why don’t you shoot me and pull me down in there and use my corpse as a _step_ to get yourself out? Hm? Surely with what little regard you hold for life, you’d see absolutely _no_ problem with that.”

Diana only curls her lip at the sarcastic bite in his tone. Why doesn’t she? This is different from the other night, after all. He’s got that big revolver—but he hasn’t actually threatened her once. Does that mean anything?

She doesn’t know and there’s no time to ponder it. She throws caution to the wind, instead. “If I give you my guns, you call your followers off Fall’s End and leave them alone.”

John sighs. “These demands of yours are so incredibly irritating.” He brushes aside the bottom of his coat so that he can tuck the revolver in under his belt. “My people have instructions to take all your friends alive, but when _they_ start shooting, what are our options? You force our hands when all we are trying to do is save you from yourselves.”

He squats down near the edge once more, gives her a smug look and wiggles his fingers, wordlessly demanding her weapons. “Every person has a place in the Project. Until they _don’t._ Unlike you and your friends, we don’t kill just for the sake of killing.”

Diana can’t help barking out a mirthless laugh.

“You are so fucking full of shit,” she mutters and finally lowers the rifle. Heaving out a sigh, she looks down at the gun once, reluctantly, before stalking over just beneath where he stands and thrusting it up into the air.

John offers her another one of those beatific smiles and bends down to retrieve the weapon from her.

 _“Thank you-”_ he says condescendingly just before she suddenly yanks down hard; his eyes widen as he gets pulled right off the edge and the floor of the pit rushes up to meet him.

He manages to twist just enough so that he doesn’t break his neck landing face first, but instead he lands hard on his back. Diana is on him in seconds, pressing the body of the rifle longways against his throat and pinning him.

 _“Now we’re both stuck in this fucking hole,”_ she hisses through bared teeth, hands pressing down on the gun with all of her weight behind them. “I want you to radio your followers and tell them to fall back or _so help me God…”_

John makes a strangled sound, choking in a breath through the pressure on his windpipe, and then he actually starts _laughing_. It’s a horrible sound, half breathless wheeze, and it takes her off guard.

In a flash he’s reaching up, planting his palms against the underside of the gun and shoving upwards with all his strength. It sends her off-kilter, takes the pressure off his throat and gives him the opportunity to lunge.

Diana manages to narrowly avoid letting him smash the gun straight up into her nose, but it comes at a total loss of what ground she’d gained.

John’s quick like some kind of fucking weasel and he uses her surprise to his advantage, letting go of the rifle to reach back and yank the revolver from his waistband. Before she can even think of trying to spin the AR-C to turn it on him, he’s got the barrel leveled straight at her heart.

She has to let him pull the rifle from her hands. He grins up at her as he tosses the weapon aside, breathing heavy himself. He’s dirty now, and his hair is mussed up from the fall, some loose strands falling over his forehead.

“I will be doing no such thing, deputy. You think you’re clever—but you’re _not,”_ he says, waving the revolver in a wordless sign that she needs to get up off of him. “You think that you’re saving people, _but you’re not.”_

Diana can do nothing but what he demands. She puts her hands up, getting to her feet slowly and taking a step back as he levers himself up off the ground, watching her every move.

“If you would just _agree to confess,_ a great many of our problems would be solved,” he hisses as he lunges forward.

She flinches slightly as he yanks her pistol out of the holster at her thigh, backing up and tossing that off over his shoulder. It flies up over the lip of the pit and disappears somewhere in the grass.

Diana clenches her fists, watching him as closely as he watches her. “Can’t we just agree to disagree?”

He offers up a faint smile. “No.” He leans down and picks the rifle up, keeps the revolver aimed at her while he tosses it up and out. “I’m afraid, in this particular circumstance, we cannot.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? _Why do you want me so bad!?”_

The smile widens and he bows his head slightly. “We have a plan, deputy. And so far, everything has gone according to it. Except for _you,”_ he replies with a hint of venom at the end. He moves over beside one wall of the pit and waves the gun at her once more. _“Sit.”_

She gives him a nasty sneer before grudgingly obeying, sitting herself down cross-legged in the dirt like a petulant child.

“Very good.” John shoves the revolver back into his waistband, turns and jumps lithely, climbing up out of the hole with minimal effort.

Once he’s up he turns around, takes the revolver back out and goes down on one knee next to the edge, extending his free hand down towards her. “As much as I’d love to leave you down there, you’re right. You would get out eventually. So come on.”

She narrows her eyes, lips pressing into a thin line. She’s weighing her options. On the one hand, she knows he doesn’t intend on killing her; but on the other, he has proven how mercurial and unpredictable he is, and she isn’t sure how much she wants to test that.

She stands slowly. Walks over to the earthen wall beneath him. Her gaze moves from his face to the gun and then down to his extended hand, grazing over the seven Latin sins listed there. She sighs wretchedly before reaching up and clasping onto his hand.

“Good girl,” he responds with a grunt of effort as he hauls her up out of the pit and onto the grass. “Not so hard to put aside that pride of yours, now is it?”

“Screw you,” she snips back rather half-heartedly, letting go of his hand as soon as she can get enough of her body up over the edge to clamber the rest of the way up on her own.

John stands and glances down at himself, frowning at how dirty he is. He tries to brush off the front of his coat rather fruitlessly.

Diana crosses her arms and blinks, staring at his jacket almost incredulously. “Am I seriously being kidnapped by a man with _little airplanes_ on his coat?”

John stops brushing himself, eyes flicking back up to her. His mouth thins out. The barrel of the revolver recenters on her. “I’ll have you know this jacket was _tailor-made,_ deputy, and it cost more money than you’re worth.”

His lip curls as he eyes her up and down, no doubt judging her dirty brown and blue flannel and soiled skinny jeans, ripped at the knees.

“I’d rather be worth dirt than look like a walking Gucci handbag.”

John scoffs and takes an easy step toward her, still gloating in his victory enough that her insult doesn’t seem to bother him all that much. His gaze stops briefly at her mouth before returning to her eyes. He’d like to rub that smug look right off her face. _“You?_ With that makeup and those painted lips—you look more like a _whore_ than a law enforcement officer,” he replies icily.

Something flashes behind the gray-green of her eyes, steely and rebellious and wrathful. “And you look more like a lying, hypocritical sack of shit than some kind of a saint, so-”

He clenches his jaw and thumbs down the hammer on the revolver as he takes another step forward, and that’s when she strikes.

She swipes out with her left hand, grabbing the barrel and pushing it to her right as the free hand comes up and smashes into his wrist, forcing it to bend in the direction she’s pushing.

She puts all her strength into it, baring her teeth as she manages to twist the gun out of his hand and take it from him.

John snarls indignantly and lunges at her, and she immediately ducks away, popping back up just to the side and catching him in the nose with her elbow.

 _“Agh!”_ His hands go up instinctively to cradle his face as he lurches forward. She takes the opportunity to crack him on the back of the head with the butt of the revolver, sending him tumbling the rest of the way to the ground.

Diana backs up, keeps the gun pointed at him, but it seems like she actually managed to knock him out. Her gaze flicks over to the cult truck he drove up in, then back to him, and then she’s moving.

She stuffs the gun into the holster at her thigh and throws open the driver’s side door. She sweeps the interior briefly and her eyes stop on a coiled length of rope and a roll of duct tape nestled into the passenger seat.

“Fucking asshole,” she mutters, reaching over and grabbing the rope.

She stalks back over to where he lies on his front in the grass, pulling his hands behind his back and getting to work tying them together.

John comes to just as she’s tightening the first knot around his ankles, trying to move his arms and quickly realizing that he can’t. He gnashes his teeth beneath her and tries to kick his legs out but she pins them to the ground with a knee so that she can finish her task.

“Ohh, little wrath, you are making a _very big_ mistake!”

“Super sorry,” she grunts slightly as she pulls the rope taught.

She smirks and sits back on her haunches, taking in his helplessness with no small amount of satisfaction. “I’m sure you know how much I _love_ spending this time with you, but I’ve got places to be and other dirty sinners to meet.”

He turns his head to the side, fuming, trying to catch sight of her in his peripheral. _“You can’t leave, I forbid it!”_

Diana barks out a laugh, crawling forward on her knees beside him and hooking her hands over one of his biceps to roll him over onto his back. She figures she can let him have a good look before she takes his stupid truck and leaves him there. “I don’t give a _single shit,_ John.”

“You don’t understand! This is not—agh!—this is not a fucking _game,_ Diana! If you leave and either of them catch you, they are going to _hurt you.”_

“And what were _you_ gonna do, hm!? Take me to dinner and a _fucking show!?”_

 _“I am trying to save you!”_ he spits venomously, actually managing to push himself upwards from the ground in all of his vehemence. He doesn’t know when the statement actually became fact; doesn’t know when the thought of one of his siblings taking her away from him started to cause more than just a sharp sting to his pride.

He swallows down the sudden lump of mortification that forms in his throat, threatening to make his breath catch. And then he can’t help sneering as one of her hands presses to his chest and pushes him back to the grass roughly. “Me marking you for Atonement is the only way _any_ of this can possibly end well for you, deputy. A simple scar, a word borne on the flesh. It’s only skin deep! But what _they_ will do...”

He pauses to shake his head, chest rising and falling beneath her palm with his quickened breath as he lets out a strangled little laugh. “You’re worried about _me_ stealing away people’s free will!? Jacob and Faith will both reach inside your mind and _break it._ Jacob will take away your control, and Faith, well—she’ll just take _everything.”_

Diana is taken aback. She swears it almost sounds like desperation coming out of him. She stares down at John with furrowed brows, releasing some of the pressure she’s put on him, startled by how rapidly she can feel his heart beating beneath her palm. Somewhat surprised to find there’s even a heart beating in there at all.

Those blue eyes of his bore into her, suddenly much too big, with too much swirling behind them. _“Do not leave the valley,”_ he enunciates slowly, putting emphasis on every single word.

She blinks fast, clears her throat.

“I—I have to,” is all she mutters. She shakes her head, takes her hand away from him quickly as she prepares to stand up.

“Deputy,” he calls sternly, struggling against the ropes she’d bound him with.

She averts her eyes and gets back to her feet, taking a few steps back from him.

_“Diana!”_

She swallows thickly, lip curling. The longer she hesitates, the longer she allows herself to think of the implications of what he’s said, the more her resolve starts to chip away. She shakes her head once more before forcing herself to turn back toward the truck.

 _“Fuck’s sake!”_ John wriggles on the ground helplessly, unable to do anything but curse and watch as she backs the truck up and takes off back toward the road, digging up a nice patch of grass and soil in her wake.


	11. Oh the Bliss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, the Bliss will set you free
> 
> Oh, the Bliss is gonna make you see
> 
> There’s a garden through the gate
> 
> Where the Father keeps us safe
> 
> -The Hope County Choir, Oh the Bliss

John is livid. _Mortified._ He’d come close to murdering the two men who eventually found him out in that field, his wrath nearly getting the better of him in the face of such embarrassment. 

It infuriates him that she left the way she did. It enrages him that he practically _begged her not to_. That he’d let his guard down enough to give her the upper hand on two separate occasions within _five fucking minutes_ of each other.

Is this how low he’s sunk? 

Diana Baker has bothered and bewildered and _unsettled_ him.

Why does it have to be _her?_ Why do _his_ fate and _his_ future have to be pinned inextricably to _her?_ Because that’s God’s will? Or is Joseph just trying to prove a point? Put him in his place, teach him a lesson?

The most vexing part of this problem is the more she resists, the more he finds he _wants_ her. Every time she leaves him with some petulant, cutting last remark he wants to strangle the words from her very throat with his bare hands, cut them off before they can reach the open air. Swallow them up. Joseph commanded him to _love_ her, but the only emotion John seems to be able to conjure is avarice. It is the very crux of his pride now, tied up in a convoluted knot with the absolute distaste he feels for her.

He’s always had something to use to his advantage. Charisma, money, threats, favors, blackmail—whatever he’s needed, he’s been able to conjure up. But with her, his hands always seem to come up empty. His bag of masks and tricks has been laid open to reveal nothing.

John locks himself in the ranch. Makes a call to his people at the bunker, tells them to make sure their _guests_ are fed and kept alive. What he’d like to say is _kill them all,_ but he bites his tongue before the temptation gets the best of him. Afterwards his phone rings and rings, but he does not answer it. 

She incites his wrath more than anyone, invites it like it has a home with hers. The more he obsesses over it, the deeper she seems to burrow into every waking aspect of his life. He has to force himself not to go back to the bunker and start carving up the people they’ve got held there, because he _knows_ it won’t be a satisfying substitute. 

He wants to be the one to catch her; to put his mark on her, to sanctify her. He _must_ be the one to break her open and pull the devils out. He is the one that knows them best, after all. And he needs to be the one who knows _all_ of it. He’s always been the one; knowledge and the power that comes along with it have _always_ been his most useful weapons, and nothing about that has changed. 

He’s sure of it.

She may have people gathering around her now, but if he can get her alone again...there’s simply no telling what kinds of sin she might spill out. And he will squeeze until he has all of it; until she is empty, ready to be filled with the light and love only the word of the Father can provide.

Made pliable. _Docile_.

He must be the one to walk her through the Gates. She is for him, not for Jacob, nor for Faith. Despite what a cruel trick of fate or design it seems to be, he knows it deep in his bones. 

He will figure out a way. He always does. He just needs to clean up the messes she’s made, first.

**. . .**

Diana wonders, and not for the first time this afternoon, if it was _really_ such a good idea going after Charlemagne Victor Boshaw. 

She lands hard on her back, narrowly missing slicing her head open on the edge of a busted-down ‘Slow Children Playing’ sign that juts up out of the dirt.

An Angel, eyes gone milky and clouded from the Bliss, is currently attempting to claw her eyes out while _Disco In-fucking-ferno_ plays jauntily from Sharky’s huge and elaborate and _completely unnecessary_ speaker system. 

Jess and Grace had radioed in earlier to let her and Addie know they’d beaten back the Peggies attacking Fall’s End, and she’d told them - with no small amount of relief, and a few sarcastic jabs that Jess reciprocated readily - to get their asses in a car and come across the river. They could go grab Hurk Jr. while her and Adelaide nabbed Sharky out of his personal trailer park toy box. 

But she didn’t think she’d end up like _this_. 

The Angel grunts and slobbers behind the surgical mask he wears, clawed fingers scratching for purchase and she shrieks, losing her self-control in the face of such inhumanity. It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t still mumble and cry and whimper to themselves; if there wasn’t that shred of humanity left in them.

She bites down hard on two of his fingers that claw their way into her mouth and he reels back just far enough for her to jam the barrel of John’s revolver up under his chin and pull the trigger.

She presses her lips together, closes her eyes and flinches as warm viscera splatters against her face and chest. Jaw clenched, she scrambles out from beneath him, hastily wiping at her face with her sleeve as she stumbles toward the edge of the old trailer park. 

A searing gout of heat envelops her, thrown off from Sharky’s _very illegal_ flamethrower as Adelaide squawks on the radio, buzzing by low overhead to strafe a group of Angels trying to get in from the north. 

The flames finally cut off as Sharky goes to fiddle with the jury-rigged controls of his sound system. Sparks fly a second after his foot goes down on the pedal, and then the whole setup starts spewing smoke. “Aw, shitty shit! My pedal busted on me! I can’t stop the music!” 

_“What!?”_

“You gotta kill them speakers, chica, right quick!” 

_“Fuck’s sakes,”_ she hisses, reaching up to hastily wipe some more blood spatter from her face. _“How!?”_

“Hit the breakers! I’ll keep on meltin’ Angel faces!” 

Diana brandishes John’s revolver and curses to herself, breaks into a run toward the northern entrance where Addie just mowed down that gaggle of Angels. Now they’re nothing but bloody obstacles she has to maneuver around, and she supposes she should be thankful for that. 

She spots wires trailing on the ground and follows them to another huge speaker and some kind of makeshift circuit breaker connected to it. 

Just as she’s reaching up to throw the switch, a cloud of powder suddenly explodes in her face and she gasps and instinctively flinches backwards. _“What the fuck-”_

Everything’s much too bright all of a sudden. Her vision swims and sparkles, and she swears she can hear someone _giggling_.

  
She sucks in a great breath, and she’s looking up at the sky, and it looks _beautiful_.

_“Welcome to the Bliss…”_

_  
“I know you’ve heard stories about me.” _

_  
“That I’m a liar.”_

_“A manipulator.”_

  
Darkness clears away like a fog, and Diana doesn’t understand why she isn’t in the Moonflower anymore. She can’t hear Sharky’s incessant, inane chatter, can’t hear the rhythmic thunder of Addie’s chopper plowing through the sky. 

All she can hear is _her_.

All she can see is the strange green-tinged fog. 

And then she feels hands clasping her own, pulling her forward through the verdant grass as if she were weightless. 

_“That I poison people’s minds.”_

Butterflies with wings the color of the ocean flit and flutter around them. It’s been so _long_ since she thought about that, about the ocean. An expanse that could easily swallow a person whole; that _does_. She doesn’t remember her father, but she knows that’s how he died. Somewhere, distantly, she thinks that’s how she could die here, swallowed up whole. 

“Well, let me tell you a different story,” Faith croons to her in that honey-sweet voice, tracing her fingertips down the length of Diana’s palm before smiling and twirling away in that little lace dress and leading her on through the grass. “A _true_ story.”

She finds herself reaching out for Faith, stumbling along behind her like a child, eager to regain that touch, that brief affection. 

Diana doesn’t know if she’s ever been anywhere so peaceful as this place. She doesn’t know how she got here, but that doesn’t really matter; what she does know is that she doesn’t want to leave. 

Faith turns back and smiles again like _she_ knows just what Diana wants, takes her hands once more and sits them both down in the grass.

She starts telling the story, _her_ story. 

Diana can see the pain in her eyes. The way her lip trembles. She can feel it all; the shame, the loneliness, the despair. She finds herself reaching out again, incomprehensibly drawn to the younger woman like the tides are drawn by the moon. 

_“And then she met the Father,”_ Faith whispers, breaking out into a radiant smile and reaching up to catch Diana’s fingers before they can brush against her cheek. She stands and Diana does too, weightless as a balloon, capable of nothing except letting Faith pull her on through the fields and the fog. 

Everything is so _lush,_ bathed in some kind of ethereal glow like the fog itself is luminescent. She feels something swell inside her, roiling up and settling in the cavity of her chest the way the fog roils and separates to reveal that humongous statue of Joseph perched off in the distance. 

She feels _serene_. She listens to Faith gush about how the Father gave her a new family and a will to live and a purpose and it sounds... _lovely_. It sounds like nothing she’s ever believed in, but all of a sudden, it’s like she’s soaking up Faith’s own, well, _faith_. Is there such a thing as piety through osmosis?

All of a sudden, it’s easy to believe how Joseph has done all of this, drawn in so many. 

Diana feels her jaw drop when Faith sprouts a pair of celestial _wings_ , rising up off the ground, looking for all the world like an angel come to life before her. Somewhere in the very back of her mind alarm bells are _screaming_ , but through all the Bliss it’s nothing more than a slight tickle, easily overlooked and forgotten in favor of a sight so otherworldly. 

Faith reaches out for her and Diana responds without hesitation, linking her hands with the younger woman’s and letting herself be pulled upwards into the ether. It’s almost like floating in water, the feeling of buoyancy that washes through her as soon as their hands touch once more. 

They ascend, further and further, and Faith tells her about the choice she was asked to make; if she would _die_ for him. If she would _have faith_ in him. She looks Diana in the eye and tells her she was _scared_.

And, staring so raptly at the younger woman as she is, Diana witnesses a troubling sight; for a moment - just the blink of an eye - when Faith smiles at her, her mouth appears to be full of maggots. Her eyes take on a sort of filmy blackness that draws itself across like the third eyelid of a crocodile. 

And then suddenly she turns away and they’re soaring through the sky, dipping low, almost touching the pristine surface of a lake before rocketing back upwards toward the statue that perpetually watches over them. Diana’s mind reels. She can’t be certain if she’d actually seen that.

“The father told her _this was her test_. He would have faith in her—if she had faith in him.” Faith draws Diana easily up toward the gargantuan stone book held open in the statue's hand. “So she closed her eyes, and leapt,” she whispers, looking deep into Diana’s eyes and smiling a perfectly normal, angelic smile.

She lets go of Diana and the deputy finds herself dropping down onto the book; gravity’s found her again, and her legs wobble beneath her from the sheer weirdness of suddenly having weight. But there’s no wind up here, not even so much as a slight breeze. Everything is still. 

“The Father kept his word,” Faith says with a happy, tinkling laugh as she flits backwards, and her wings seem like they’re growing and becoming more substantial as they carry her back into the open sky; not just a weird trick of the Bliss, but real feather and bone. “The Path to Eden is clear to those who have faith…”

Diana turns her head to watch and she finally notices Cameron Burke standing over near the edge of the stone tome, his back turned to her. He’s watching Faith too, it seems like.

She wants to try and say something to him, but a sudden _shifting_ beneath them has her spreading her arms, trying to balance her weight and keep from sliding straight off the edge as the statue pitches harshly forward. The sound of stone cracking echoes up through the air and Diana feels very real panic seeping in through the haze of the Bliss.

Burke finally turns around, seeming like he’s completely unperturbed by this sudden and terrifying development, and the spike of fear she feels only intensifies. 

“Walk the path,” he says, extending a hand back toward her, looking at her with nothing but blackened, hollowed-out eye sockets. Tears of blood stain his cheeks, dripping down onto the breast of his flak jacket. 

Diana tries to scream but no sound comes out, and she watches helplessly as he turns back and very placidly steps over the edge of the book and disappears. 

She claws her hands in the air, feels very real tears stinging at her eyes as the statue rumbles beneath her yet again. Her frantic gaze moves back to the sky, back to where Faith still hovers, but those beautiful wings are _burning_. Faith smiles with maggots dripping from her mouth and black, inky tears trailing from the corners of her own eyes. 

And then the loudest crack yet emanates up from somewhere far below her and Diana spreads her legs, centering her balance again instinctively, but it’s useless. That first crack is followed by several more, stringing together a terrible warning, but there is nothing she can do. 

She tries to scream again as the giant book crumbles away beneath her. Whatever Faith did to help her to fly before, she’s not doing it now; Diana plummets along with all the huge, broken chunks of stone. All the feelings of safety, all the easy placidity is gone now, choked out of her by the weight of crushing terror. The weight of gravity. And it feels _very_ real. 

She pinwheels her arms, feels the breath stolen from her lungs, watches as clouds of Bliss fog stream upwards past her until she is clear of them, and all she can see is hard, unforgiving earth spread out forever before her. 

This is it. 

It almost surprises her to realize she’s not ready.

**. . .**

“Holy shit.”

“Diana!?”

_“Dep!?”_

“What the hell, man, you all are draggin’ me away from daddy’s campaign and my _incredibly_ important worshippings and offerings to the Monkey God and whatnot so we can sift through a pile of _dead bodies?”_

Diana can hear their voices, Jess and Grace, and a man she doesn’t recognize. Suddenly hurtling back to consciousness is a harrowing experience and she gasps in a desperate lungful of air, feels like she might not have been breathing for however fucking long she’d been unconscious. Her hands claw at the dirt and she pushes herself upwards from the ground weakly.

She hears the man scream shrilly from just beside her and it sends a throbbing ache straight into the spot just behind her eyes. “Can you...shut the _fuck_ up-” 

Her whole body flushes with an uncomfortable fever-warmth and she senses the other two coming in close to swarm her, but she can’t stop it—she feels the bile rising and pukes right there into the dirt, the muscles in her abdomen clenching with an intense and unavoidable need to purge. 

“Aw, hell!” 

“Hey, dep, it’s okay–you’re okay,” Jess tries to reassure the battered deputy as she falls to her knees beside her, putting a hand on her back that quickly trails forward to pull Diana’s hair away from her face. 

Diana only grunts in acknowledgement, mildly embarrassed they have to see her like this, but that fucking Bliss _destroys_ her every time she’s exposed to it. And this one must have been a heavy dose, from the vague and unsettling memories that flash back through her mind like pictures from an old slideshow. 

It couldn’t have been real. Right? Angel-Faith, Burke, being all the way _up there_. 

Her stomach clenches painfully and forces up whatever is left, mostly just bile at this point. She gags on the acidic bitterness of it, spitting to try and clear it all from her mouth. And then she forces herself to sit back on her knees and look up. She has to know. 

They’re at the very bottom of a steep cliff, and way up past the top, she can just see the edge of the book the statue holds and the other outstretched hand sticking out into the air. Had she _actually_ fallen all that way? The thought makes her guts curl up and clench again, but there’s no way for her to wrap her head around it. It had _crumbled_. But there it stands, solid and very much whole, very much still beckoning all of Hope County to come and follow his word. 

Diana lets out a shaky breath and weakly brushes Jess’s hands off of her, attempting to get to her feet on her own. Beneath her, an enormous white Eden’s Gate cross is painted on the ground like a fucking _bullseye_ and corpses litter the open space around them. She thinks of spent bullet casings, oddly, and yet again has to wonder how the fuck she’s still alive.

“Dep, what the fuck _happened_ to you?” Jess asks, unusually restrained beside her. 

“I don’t—I don’t know.” 

“Addie and Sharky called us and said you _vanished,”_ Grace adds from where she stands a foot or so away, eyeing Diana like she might tip over any second. 

Diana looks over at her, sees the concern openly displayed on the sniper’s face and cannot come up with any kind of an answer that makes sense or seems satisfactory. “I got...I think Faith had me,” is all she can say. 

She bends down and rests her palms on the torn knees of her jeans, feeling another swell of nausea roll through her. “I, uh...I don’t know. One minute, I was in the trailer park, and the next thing I knew, I was...somewhere else.” 

“Oooh, she _did_ get you, man! That Bliss, it does weird fuckin’ things with your head. I tell you, I won’t come and visit Sharky no more ‘cause of that. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy some, uh, extracurricular hallucinatory mood enhancers just as much as the next guy, but _that_ shit-”

Diana’s brow pinches. She finally looks over at the stranger, sees his awful flag-printed jogging pants first, then the muscle shirt and the MOM tattoo on his arm. She can’t help sneering slightly, squinting and reaching up to rub her eyes. “You must be Hurk…”

“Hell yeah, buddy! Pleased to make your acquaintance, even if it is kind of a weird-ass first date type deal. I mean, I ain’t gonna complain about bein’ in the company of three badass ladies who could probably snap my neck-”

“Hurk, shut the fuck up for a few minutes,” Grace interrupts him, not entirely bad-tempered, but it’s obvious they’ve been dealing with his chatter for a while. It must run in the family. “C’mon, Diana, we gotta get you outta here.”

Hurk clamps his mouth shut and dutifully moves to help Grace, tucking an arm in under one of Diana’s while the sniper does the same on her other side.

Diana tries to shrug them off, but she can’t even do that much successfully. She feels like she got hit on the head with a fucking brick. “How long ago did they radio you? How long was I missing?” 

Jess leads the way just in front of them, keeping an eye out for assailants. She does chance a look back, though, to answer Diana’s question. “We've been drivin’ around lookin’ for you for almost five hours.” 

Diana swallows thickly. 

_Five hours?_

Thoughts of maggots and death cross her mind, and all she can do is shake her head. What is it the French called an orgasm? _Petite mort?_ The little death, she thinks, and that feels like what it was. The way she’d felt so at peace for so much of that time, it _terrifies_ her. It terrifies her how easily she’d succumbed to _everything_ Faith had made her feel. 

She makes them stop and search for Burke’s body before they leave, but there’s no sign of him. Had he ever even been there at all? She’d felt like she was tumbling down the rabbit hole staring into John’s stupid blue eyes just the other night, but now it feels like she’s had a few too many ‘Eat Me’s’ and ‘Drink Me’s’ on top of that.

They get Diana back to the boxy SUV they’re driving, Hurk sliding in behind the wheel and Grace taking shotgun beside him. Jess gets into the back with Diana, and she’s surprised when Jess motions for her to lie down across the seat. She ends up with her head nested against the other woman’s lap. 

“Thanks,” she mutters wearily, throwing an arm across her face to keep the broken streaks of sunlight from blinding her and making her headache that much worse. 

Jess only hums in acknowledgement, turning her head to look out the window as Hurk starts driving.


	12. No Good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And you know I got feelings
> 
> Won't you hit me right, you know you might as well
> 
> Won't do you no good
> 
> -Kaleo, No Good

The Testy Festy is a big deal in these parts.

Diana gets the whole god-awful shindig explained to her by Casey a few days later when he catches her trying to steal breakfast scraps from the Spread Eagle’s kitchen.

And somehow he ropes her into procuring the Festy’s most important ingredients. She fights him, nearly flings a cold fork-full of scrambled eggs right into his face, but he _insists_ she has to get the goddamn prairie oysters for him. She almost tells him she’s a little too preoccupied having nightmares about _maggots dripping from Faith Seed’s mouth,_ but she somehow bites her tongue.

 _She’s_ become the face of the resistance, the face on the ‘WANTED: SINNER’ posters smattered all over the goddamn county. She’s the one who’s brought so many people back to Fall’s End. So _she_ needs to be the one to supply the yearly festival with the little extra oomph needed to lighten everyone’s spirits; the _pièce de résistance._

She wants to supply a little extra oomph to his face, preferably with her boot, but she grudgingly agrees to his stupid request because she _owes_ these people multiple times over. Her condition is that he cook up or freeze _all_ of the meat, not just the testicles.

Jess is a seasoned hunter, so Diana takes her and Sharky along to go get the trailer with the festival’s one and only food cart, and then the three of them set out to the Davenport Farm to hopefully find the bulls reportedly still roaming the property.

They’re all crammed onto the bench seat of the old truck the trailer’s attached to. Sharky’s driving and Diana sits in the middle between them while Jess reaches across her to flick through all of the three radio stations that are still on the air.

“Yeah, crank the tunes! Just none of that Peggie shit.”

Diana sneers as a snippet of ‘Oh, John!’ comes through, about to sling out a few choice words. Thankfully, Jess has the good sense to switch it back to the previous station.

 _“Oh, John,”_ Sharky sing-songs smugly. “What a self-absorbed dick. You just know he jerks off in the mirror and marvels at his own fuckin’ facial expressions.”

Diana sputters as she’s trying to light a cigarette, dropping it into her lap where it bounces to the floor of the truck.

Jess cackles from beside her, reaching behind Diana’s shoulders to punch Sharky on the arm. “Fuckin’ A, you can say that again That prick’s ego is like...twice the size of Texas.”

“Yeeah, hearin’ Auntie Addie tell it, his fuckin’ pipe game must be, too. Pretty sure she’s got him on her... _‘any hole list,’”_ he replies with a full-body shudder.

“Ugh,” Diana groans, mortified at the thought of Adelaide and _any_ of her holes and why she would have a _list_ for them. She quickly leans down to search the floor of the truck when she feels a bit of unwanted heat creeping up her chest and flushing her cheeks.

She’s still embarrassed about how John caught her off guard the other day, the way he’d spoken to her after she tied him up.

He really hadn’t wanted her to go. At least, that was certainly what he’d wanted her to believe. And after what she’d experienced with Faith, Diana finds herself actually starting to take what he’d said to heart.

Why had he warned her? Why would it matter to him _who_ caught her, as long as she was caught? Why did he give a single flying fuck what his siblings might do to her?

“Yeah, I definitely didn’t need to know that, dude,” Jess says with a curled lip, sliding back in the seat and throwing a boot up on the dashboard. It seems they’re settled on the Duane Eddy instrumental jauntily assaulting them from the truck’s speakers.

Sharky shrugs, his seemingly eternal good humor unbothered by the women’s crude reactions. 

“So, uh, seems like John’s gunnin’ for _you_ pretty hard there, po-po,” he offers up, glancing over at Diana out of the corner of his eye.

She sneers, readjusts the sunglasses perched on her face and flicks some hair out of the way before finally getting her smoke lit.

“Seems like they all are. You still never explained to me how that bitch snuck me right out of the Moonflower without you noticing,” she shoots back at him.

Sharky blinks and refocuses on the road. “Your guess is as good as mine, shorty. One minute you were there, the next— _poof,_ like some Criss Angel-type shit. Woulda been pretty fuckin’ slick under, uh, different circumstances.”

Jess shakes her head as she rolls down the truck’s passenger window to let the smoke out. She reaches up and twiddles her fingers and Diana hands over the cigarette to share with her. “You still ain’t said what happened to you, either, dep.”

Diana chews her lip for a moment, shrugs one shoulder evasively. “Faith told me some sob story about her past, and how Joseph helped her,” and she can’t help rolling her eyes at that, “and then—then I was up on top of that fucking statue with Burke…”

“Ain’t he that Fed you all rolled in with?” Sharky asks, tapping the fingers of one hand on the steering wheel.

“Yeah. He’s a real grade-A asshole, but…” she trails off, thinking about his blackened, hollowed-out eye sockets. The way he’d just moseyed right off the edge. Just like that. It had been like something out of a horror movie. How could she _possibly_ explain it to them?

“S’that why you wanted to look for his body when we found you?” Jess asks, catching Diana’s gaze as she flicks the spent ash out the window and hands the cigarette back over.

Diana mumbles her thanks and nods. “Yeah. He told me to ‘walk the path’...and then I watched him walk right off the edge.”

She scoffs, looks down and shakes her head. Reaches up with her free hand to scratch at her scalp in a fretful sort of way. “I don’t know what happened, I don’t know if he was actually even there, I don’t know if I actually even _fell-”_

“Yeah, yeah,” Jess cuts in, seeming to sense that it’s a touchy subject. “We get it, no worries. The Bliss is fucked up. And so is the creepy bitch who makes it.”

They manage to put down three of the bulls still roaming the Davenport property. A whole hell of a lot of blood and sweat for six measly testicles between them, but that’s all Diana is willing to do; she finds she can hunt when she needs to, but she doesn’t like eating anything that ever had a face, never has.

The animals are huge, and they have to commandeer a farm tractor just to move the carcasses. It’s an incredibly risky maneuver letting Sharky drive the rusty old machine all the way back to Fall’s End, slow and unprotected as it is, but they don’t have much of a choice.

He offers to do it willingly enough, keeping his shotgun across his lap and at the ready the entire way while Jess and Diana drive point behind him, keeping an eye out for trouble.

They do get accosted by a few cultists driving ATV’s, but between Sharky’s incendiary slugs and Jess’s uncanny aim with that bow of hers, they end up posing little threat. The Testy Festy cart might get back to Fall’s End with a few extra bullet holes in the side, but as far as Diana is concerned, they’re just lucky it’s even getting there at all.

Sharky seems excited about it, though; he hoots and hollers from out in front of them, regaling the women loudly about his own exploits from the Festies of years past.

Jess scoffs and shakes her head at his story of the entire baseball field going up in flames because he’d thought it would be ‘romantic as fuck’ to ask a girl out with a bit of flaming calligraphy in the grass; a surprise to everyone involved, and most definitely _not_ a romantic one.

“Fuck, I remember that,” Jess says with an uncharacteristically indulgent snicker. “Whitehorse made him go back and re-seed the whole field once the fire finally got put out.”

Diana can only shake her own head in response, a wry smile snaking her lips. _“Jesus._ I dunno, that kinda shit might’ve worked on me when I was a teenager.”

Back in her halcyon days, she probably would have jumped Sharky’s bones with little to no forethought. He is a reckless idiot with a thorough distaste for authority, and as much as she is loath to admit it—he is _actually_ pretty funny.

But underneath the inane bravado and bad movie references and the pervasive stench of gasoline, he is a _decent guy._ He may be bad at explaining his emotions - hell, they’re _all_ pretty fucking terrible at it - but she can tell he _cares_ about what happens to Hope County and the people who live here. They all do. And she’s trying to soak some of that up, to get past the single-mindedness of simply paying back the people who’ve saved her ass so many times now.

There are a lot more lives at stake than just theirs. She has to admit, as much of a waste of her time as she thinks this whole thing is, maybe this little festival of theirs _will_ brighten people’s spirits, remind them of what they’re fighting back for. As long as none of _John’s_ people drop in to royally fuck it up.

The threat of him looms in the back of Diana’s mind constantly, like a ghost refusing to be banished. She knows how absolutely pissed he must have been to let himself be disarmed and trussed up like that. She still has his revolver, nestled firmly in the holster at her thigh, and he’s probably pissed about that, too. She feels like she’s constantly keeping an eye over her shoulder, waiting for whenever he’ll spring his next attack.

She has no idea why she’s gone to such lengths to play his little game. She’s squandered _so many_ opportunities to remove him from this gruesome playing field his family has concocted. 

She just _can’t do it._ Despite what he’s done to others, what he did and tried to do to her, something _always_ stops her.

The cutting abuse they hurl at each other whenever they come into contact is becoming almost like a comfortable routine, and somehow, in some ghoulish way, after a few days have gone by, she almost _misses_ it. Especially after what happened to her in the Henbane; she can deal with John and his propensity for spontaneous anger and physical violence, but whatever kind of hypnotic shit Faith is dealing in with the Bliss is another story entirely.

The worst, the most frightening parts of John are actually those horrible moments of calm and reasoning benevolence of his that take her so off guard _every time_. He is like a snake shedding skin after skin; sometimes it’s easy to see through his good will, cut thick with so much haughtiness and condescension, but other times - like that goddamned warning he’d given her before she left him - it is frightening how sincere he seems to become.

It is easier when he is stripped down to the violence at his core. She can’t explain why, other than that sadism seems to be the most honest part of him, the part she understands and can combat the best. She still gloats in the satisfaction of outmaneuvering him even as she anxiously awaits his next move. It is a tenuous limbo to occupy, and something she dare not speak about to any of her comrades.

She can smirk and snicker at their crude jokes and offhand comments all day long, knowing they are only trying to make the best of a god-awful situation, but the truth of the matter is deeper and much weirder than they can possibly conceive.

John Seed is like a splinter jammed just far enough into her skin that he cannot be pulled out. Whenever she moves he pains her in some way, wherever she looks she is accosted by reminders of him. His image is plastered all over the Holland Valley on billboards and posters and his convoys patrol the roads almost constantly. Whenever she looks to the hills, that YES sign is always looking back. She’s even held onto that revolver of his for some reason, despite numerous chances to switch it out for some other pilfered firearm.

She’s got to get to the people he’s holding captive, _somehow_. She’s got to get through all of Joseph’s siblings. Somehow. Before they swallow up the rest of Hope County and end up burying it all in the dirt.

**. . .**

She never intended on getting drunk.

But everyone in Fall’s End makes their way out to the baseball field that night, and their spirits _are_ high, and Casey slaps a greasy hand on her shoulder and calls her a hero and makes a surprisingly heartfelt speech and people are just _handing_ her solo cups full of keg beer left and right and, well...here we are.

Diana snorts out a discordant laugh as Hurk pushes a slingshot into her hands, tells her she needs to slam a shot of whiskey right now before shooting a bunch of balloon targets they’ve set up, and for every one she misses there’ll be another shot. She goes to put her beer on the table, misses and simply drops it into the grass instead, glancing down as she feels something wet soaking through the tongue of her boot. “Shit.”

She does not let that deter her, however. She is pulled right back into the days after she’d just gotten out of juvie, aimless and despondent and looking for anything to keep her mind away from the things that had transpired there. She’d worked a series of shitty part-time jobs, fallen into drugs and partying, and absolutely would not pass up the chance to assert her dominance at _any_ drinking game that got pulled together. Any chance to feel some kind of accomplishment.

That old competitive streak flares up in her with a vengeance, and she takes Hurk’s challenge almost greedily. She pops all but one of the balloons on the first try, and the crowd gathered around her gawks and whistles as she slams back the one and only shot she is due.

“Hoooo-ey! That’s what I’m talkin’ about, lady-girl! Hell yeah!” Hurk slaps a hand on her back as she hisses from the burn of the alcohol and crumples the solo cup, tossing it into the grass.

Jess comes up to her then, unusually rosy-cheeked, with a beer in either hand. She passes one of them to Diana, who takes it with a sloppy, grateful grin.

“Nice fuckin’ shootin’, Tex,” Jess jabs her good-naturedly with an elbow, sloshing some of her own drink as they both turn and walk away from the crowd.

“Pfft,” Diana chortles and shakes her head, reaches into the pocket of the leather jacket she’d found in one of the empty houses to procure herself a cigarette. “I shoulda hit all of ‘em. So much for fuckin’ - _hic_ \- target practice every weekend…”

Jess angles her head and looks over at her out of the corner of her eye. “Yeah? That what you did in your free time before all this shit?”

Diana stops for a few moments so that she can light the cigarette. “Mostly,” she mutters, stuffing the lighter back into her pocket. She takes a drag, eyes the glowing cherry at the end for a moment before passing it over. “Stress relief, ya know? Needed somethin’ to occupy my time when I realized I couldn’t just keep getting - _hic_ \- fucked up for the rest of my life…and shooting shit seemed to fit the bill.”

Jess falls silent for a few beats after taking the cigarette, downs a big swig of her beer and looks out over the darkened farmland they’ve wandered into. “Heh...shit, so, uh—should the entirety of Fall’s End _not_ be trying to get you hammered, then?” she asks just a little nervously, and it’s evident she is trying to clarify if the deputy has a problem.

Diana takes the opportunity to plunk herself down on the ground, waving off Jess’s concern unsteadily. “Fuck, no...I got a handle on it now,” she hiccups again, brows furrowing. “Just, back in the day, you know...didn’t have much to look forward to, I guess. It was...easy to fall into.”

Jess hums, tucking in the flannel tied around her waist as she takes a seat beside Diana in the grass. “And now?” she asks as she passes the cigarette back over.

Diana chews her lip, takes it and raises her eyes to the sky. She can see the Milky Way up there, slicing across like a great cosmic scar. It’s funny how much more of the night she can see here than back in Great Falls, how much less light pollution there is.

“I don’t even know. I feel like there’s gotta be some kind of light at the end of all of this, but,” she shakes her head, takes a drag. “Fuck if I know how we’re gonna get there. And I feel like—sometimes I feel like the only reason I keep fighting is because I don’t know how to just roll over and die quietly.”

Jess narrows her eyes as she brings her knees up to her chest, settling her arms atop them. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Diana shrugs, takes a sip of her beer. “I don’t know. That fucking family, this whole situation, it’s just...un-fucking-real, isn’t it? I mean there is a goddamn _federal marshal_ that’s gone missing here, not to mention police officers _...and fucking no one has come to check?”_

“No, fuck no, not that—what do you mean about not knowin’ how to _‘roll over and die?’”_ Jess’s voice rises slightly and she scoots on the ground, angling herself so she faces the deputy.

Diana scoffs and holds the cigarette out, and then finally looks over to meet Jess’s gaze. Her brows furrow at the look on the hunter’s face, it’s far too concerned, too... _invested_.

“I don’t know, fuck, just forget it, okay?” She levers herself back to her feet, drains the rest of the beer from the cup in a long swig.

“Uh, I’m not just gonna _forget_ somethin’ like that.” Jess scrambles to her own feet, rounding on Diana like she thinks the deputy might try to run off. “Seriously, Di...what the fuck?”

Diana sighs, spreading her arms at her sides, her anger suddenly sparking like steel on flint. “What do you want me to say, Jess!? I’m not a _fucking hero!_ I never asked to be put in this position! I feel like—like all I am is a fly, buzzing around and bumping into shit just loud enough to catch their attention and _piss them off!_ And all that’s gonna happen is, eventually, they are gonna swat me. And all I’m doing is putting the rest of you in danger! I mean, fuck, if it’s just me they want so bad...you should’ve just let them have me!”

Jess just stares at her, glassy-eyed, a look of incredulity plastered across her face. Suddenly she throws her beer to the ground, marches across the short distance between them, hauls back and punches Diana square in the face.

“Ah, Jesus _fuck!”_ Diana recoils and ducks and brings her hands up to cover her nose and cheekbone protectively, stamping a boot into the grass in pain and utter bewilderment.

Jess hisses and shakes out her fist, then levels the deputy with a pointed finger. “You may not have asked for any of this, but neither did we! Yeah, maybe we shoulda seen it coming, but how the _fuck_ were any of us supposed to know it was gonna get this bad!? And we are doin’ what we can, we are taking that fucking risk right alongside you, and we ain’t just gonna let ‘em have you because we are all in this _together!”_

Diana blinks at her a little owlishly, straightening up some. “Jess-”

“Shut up! Look, I know we ain’t known each other that long, but we have killed I dunno _how many_ Peggies together and that’s a fuckin’ bond of trust right there, okay? That’s like some Band of Brothers shit! I mean, _fuck,_ dep,” Jess throws her hands out at her sides, “I don’t wanna hear you talk like you’re ready to give up! You’re like...like somebody I could actually look up to! You’re a fuckin’ badass! You know how few of those there are around here!? And you’re not puttin’ anybody in danger who ain’t already decided they wanna be there!”

Diana snorts and spits a glob of blood out into the grass, watches Jess carefully. She breathes a little heavy, tilts her head back to stop the blood from trickling out her nose. “If they _ever_ agreed to let Pratt and Hudson go...and to leave the rest of you alone...I’d hand myself over in a _fucking heartbeat,”_ she mutters, very sober all of a sudden.

Jess bares her teeth, eyes glistening in the dim light thrown off from the Festy’s lights behind them. “Then you’d be a fuckin’ idiot…for trusting _anything_ they said.” She levels Diana with a pointed gaze, flexes her fists at her sides and finally heaves out another sigh.

She approaches Diana, reaches out to gently tug the deputy’s hand from over her face to assess the damage. “Shit...I’m sorry, okay, I didn’t mean to—it’s just,” she lets out another frustrated exhale, lips curling down plaintively. “We _need_ you.”

Diana scowls, meets Jess’s gaze and holds it. “No, you don’t.”

“None of those fuckin’ people would be here if it wasn’t for you,” the hunter glances back and extends an arm out toward the baseball field to try and get her point across, still holding onto Diana’s hand with her other one. She looks back at the deputy.

The scowl turns into an almost pained grimace as realization begins to dawn on Diana. _“Jess,”_ she begins cautiously, shaking her head as if she can simply will away her friend’s reckless feelings. “Don’t...”

Jess’s lip curls slightly, but she doesn’t tear her eyes away. She squeezes Diana’s hand. “You and me and Grace...we’re a _good fuckin’ team._ I thought I was better off on my own, but-”

_“Stop it.”_

Jess’s eyes practically blaze with some kind of steely defiance. “But _I’m not_. You—you’re-”

 _“I’m not fucking good for you, Jess,”_ Diana hisses and finally yanks her hand back, turning away. This is the very last conversation she wants to be having. It makes her heart hurt. “You’re my friend, okay? And even _that’s_ treading dangerous fucking territory. I’m not good for _anybody,_ and I don’t deserve whatever the fuck it is you think you might wanna give me.”

Jess’s hand lingers in the air for a bit longer before she lets it drop. A sneer crosses her features then, anger and indignation flaring up. _“Fuck._ Is that really what you think?”

Diana turns to look back and levels her with a pointed glare. “It’s not what I think, it’s what I _know,_ okay.”

The hunter shakes her head, flexes the fingers of the hand she’d hit Diana with. She releases a furious breath and looks up to the sky. “This is fucking stupid. Just—you know what, just fuckin’ forget it.”

Diana can’t help a scoff as she spreads her arms at her sides indignantly. “Fine, good! That is _exactly_ what I’d like to do.”

Jess’s eyes flick back to her, and Diana immediately knows she fucked up. There are about a thousand better ways she could have just phrased that particular sentiment. “Oh, goddamnit, you _know_ what I mean-”

“Yeah...pretty fuckin’ sure I do,” Jess mutters, crossing her arms and turning to walk away from her.

“Jess, _come on!”_

Jess ignores her, doggedly making her way back toward the baseball field.

 _“Fuck’s sake!”_ Diana turns on her heel, mutters and curses her own stupidity and shit luck. Somehow, things _always_ have to get fucked up.


	13. In The Pines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me
> 
> Tell me where did you sleep last night
> 
> In the pines, in the pines
> 
> Where the sun don’t ever shine
> 
> I would shiver the whole night through
> 
> -Lead Belly, Where Did You Sleep Last Night

John is just starting to trace over the curve of the D when he hears the radio across the room crackle to life.

His eyes flick up briefly before refocusing on the work at hand. Writing is normally quite difficult when you’re trying to do it upside down _and_ on your own body, but luckily his _pride_ has already been etched there for years, a raised constellation of scar tissue that stands stark in the light of the table lamp he’s got angled toward his abdomen.

He presses his expensive Böker pocket knife back into the scar, bent over so far in concentration that his chin nearly touches his bare chest. Watches as fresh blood wells up from the lines he dutifully traces.

_“Hey, asshole.”_

He stops and his eyes flick up once more, but they stay on the radio this time. She sounds…different.

_“I know you’re listening.”_

_“I have a confession to make,”_ she sing-songs, and that’s when he realizes; she sounds drunk, maybe even drugged.

John inhales, straightening himself up. He grabs the hand towel he’d slung over his shoulder, wiping the blade clean. Then he grabs the glass of scotch he’s been nursing for the last half hour and drains it. He makes his way across the cold concrete floor, deftly popping the knife shut and slipping it into the back pocket of his jeans.

The blood trickling down into his waistband is a mild annoyance, but he ignores it in favor of his own fervent curiosity.

 _“I found this…lovely little swimming hole,”_ she says with a sigh. _“No Bliss; just rocks and pond scum and little bullfrogs. Maybe even some fish. Completely normal. Maybe the only normal thing left in this whole fucking county.”_

His eyes narrow and he finally reaches out to grab the radio from where it’s clipped onto the receiver. He brings it up, presses the talk button. “Deputy. Shouldn’t you and your little friends be off debasing yourselves in celebration of the culinary miracle that is the bovine testicle,” he asks with no small amount of caustic sarcasm. “I might get the wrong impression, your sneaking away and calling me in the middle of the night like this. I might think you were _serious.”_

He hears her snort derisively over the radio’s speakers. _“Serious as a heart attack, Johnno. You know, I’m surprised you didn’t send a war band out to put a stop to our little pagan party. Worshipping false idols, prayin’ to the gods of booze and—and fertility, or fornication, I don’t fuckin’ know. Is it like some superstitious virility thing? The actual, like, physical desire to_ eat _another animal’s testicles? Is that the kinda shit men think about on the regular?”_

He can’t help a scoff at her sophomoric and frankly lowbrow attempt at insulting Christianity, and also, apparently, his entire sex at the same time. A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “Deputy, where are you?”

 _“In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine,”_ she sing-songs once more

John looks down, sees his shirt slung over the back of the chair beside him and snatches it up, turning to make his way toward the stairs. “Tell me,” he breathes. “I’ll come to you.”

The basement of the ranch is stark and cavernous, acting as his own personal armory-slash-sometimes confessional. There is the ham radio setup down here as well as a few spare holding cells and a small workout room.

_“I’m not stupid. I know you probably wanna kick my ass for what I did to you. I can confess just fine over the radio.”_

“No—no, you absolutely will not, Diana. A confession is a very personal, a very _special_ thing,” he replies and he can’t help lifting the hand with the shirt up to his chest, holding it there briefly as he breezes his way up the stairs. “It is something that must be _shared_ between us. Tell me where you are.”

The door at the top of the stairs opens into the kitchen and he kicks it shut behind himself, dropping the radio onto the counter so that he can shrug his shirt back on over his shoulders. He stares down at it as he fumbles with the buttons, waiting for her response.

_“Oh, I don’t know, John. I’m sure someone will find the truck eventually, though.”_

He narrows his eyes and swipes the radio back up in his hand. “What truck?”

_“The one I crashed.”_

The corner of his mouth twitches. He turns on his heel and shoulders his way through the kitchen door and out into the main entryway.

John nearly collides with one of the men on guard duty when he heads out toward the front porch, irritation boiling up when the man lingers there like an idiot deer caught up in somebody’s headlights. _“Well!?”_

“Sorry, John, there’s—somebody just took out the silo over at Davenport Farm-”

John stands there with the CB still clutched in his hand, glances down at it briefly and clenches his teeth. Had she drunkenly _driven a truck straight into one of the Bliss silos?_ She couldn’t be _that_ fucking reckless, could she? How would she have survived such a thing to even be able to call him on the radio?

 _“Get it cleaned up,”_ John hisses at the guard before shouldering past him, down the porch steps toward the ranch’s large, looping driveway.

He climbs into one of his own cult trucks, wishes for a brief moment he still had the sporty little Lamborghini he’d driven back in Atlanta. He starts the engine and brings the radio up once more. “Tell me where you are, Diana.”

He waits a few beats. Huffs out a sigh and closes his eyes, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose in annoyance. Then he presses the talk button again. “Are you hurt?”

When no answer comes back, he throws the radio into the passenger seat and puts the truck in drive, wracking his brain over what she _had_ told him. A swimming hole. There was the small pond over near the entrance to Black Horse Peak where he often performed cleansings, but they had dumped _barrels_ full of Bliss into it.

It was fed into by a drainage basin further up the hill, though, much closer to his bunker, and to his knowledge, his people had never tampered with that spot. And it wasn’t that far from Davenport Farm, maybe a thirty minute walk up to the basin itself from the road. Driving, he could be there from the ranch in fifteen.

**. . .**

Diana glides through the water, enjoying the calm, the quiet.

The moon is almost full, glowing brightly in a sky mostly unencumbered by cloud cover.

Somewhere to the east the haunting call of a loon pierces the night.

And somewhere in the back of her mind she knows how stupid and dangerous it is to be out in Hope County alone. Her radio’s come to life periodically since she took off from Fall’s End and contacted John. She’s heard Jerome and Grace and Jess calling out for her, asking for some reply, and she’s ignored them all.

She’d even ignored John there at the end, coming to her senses and realizing she _shouldn’t have been talking to him._ It’s easy enough to try and blame the bottle of Jack she’d taken from the Festy before she’d found that truck with the keys still in it, but she can’t deceive herself; not when she’s the only one out here nursing her own chaotic thoughts.

The thing is, she knows what she told Jess is true. It’s not just something she thinks, not just an opinion she has. She isn’t good for anybody. She doesn’t deserve to be someone _anyone_ should look up to, let alone whatever she thinks Jess might be feeling.

Diana finds herself slipping easily into the dangerous mindset that whatever _John_ is trying to do to her, maybe _that’s_ what she deserves. She doesn’t believe in God or any of Joseph’s divine prophecy bullshit, but…for years she hasn’t been able to shake the feeling that the universe has been waiting to take _some kind_ of karmic retribution from her.

The only things she’s ever accomplished in her life were getting her GED before she was let out of Cascade County and somehow buckling down in her mid-twenties so that she could put herself through the police academy.

Everything else has just been a kind of filler; she’s fed the void within her with drugs, alcohol, sex, and sometimes violence when her anger gets the best of her. All the usual culprits, the empty vices that only make that void deeper, hungrier for something _real_. She’s remained unenlightened, unhappy; plagued by a relentless sense of ennui and unworthiness.

And so she’d called out to _him_ instead of responding to the others, the ones that are too good for her, never intending on confessing a damn thing; just knowing it would be enough to catch his attention. Admittedly, it had started nagging at her when no one had shown up to crash their party. And to hear him tell, he’d certainly been aware of it. So why had he left them alone?

She turns around and starts meandering her way back toward the shore where she’d dropped her clothes and her backpack and her radio, dipping her head under the water briefly to try and clear her troubling thoughts away and cool the sting on her cheek from where Jess had hit her. She’d deserved that, too.

She doesn’t notice him standing there until she swims a bit closer. Doesn’t know how long he’s been silently watching. It’s unnerving, the fact that he can be so quiet.

She stops when her feet touch bottom again, watches as he bends down and picks up the bottle of whiskey. He looks it over, seems to be appraising it for a moment.

“D’you like what I did with your billboard,” she calls out.

John’s attention refocuses on her. He lets the bottle hang by his side. He’d seen the truck she must have been talking about down near the entrance to Black Horse, the front end caved in around the mangled support beam of one of his ‘Power of Yes’ billboards. The whole thing had crumpled half to the ground from the impact, the corner of the sign on that weakened side smashed down onto the truck’s roof. The whole thing was also _on fire,_ tongues of flame well on their way to creeping up and burning his effigy right off the front of the billboard.

“Oh, I must say I find myself _thoroughly_ impressed with your knack for redecorating, deputy. The burning truck you drove into it was a particularly nice touch. Did you think of that before or after you destroyed another one of my silos?”

She smiles faintly, guesses he probably can’t see it even with the moon illuminating the night around them. She’s still a good twenty feet out from shore. “After. It was pretty easy. Just lined it up, shoved a rock onto the accelerator and let that fucker go,” she muses, sailing a hand above the water.

“After drinking all this,” he asks pointedly, holding up the half-empty bottle.

She meanders a little closer to the shore, shrugging her bare shoulders. “No. Most of that I drank on the walk up here. Had _plenty_ back at the Festy, though.”

John can’t help a sneer. She hadn’t made it all that far from Fall’s End, but she’d _still_ gotten behind the wheel, still could have fucking killed herself.

And wouldn’t it have been better if she did?

He gets the distinct impression that many of his problems would suddenly work themselves out if the troublesome deputy were removed forever from the playing field.

So why is it making him _so fucking angry?_

“Get out of the water, Diana.”

She angles her head, purses her lips roguishly. “I’m not wearing any clothes, _John_. Wouldn’t wanna go giving you any impure thoughts.”

_“Get out…of the fucking water…”_

Diana blinks, sluggish. Rolls her eyes and curls her lip and ends up doing what he commands, just with a childishness that makes him want to fucking _smash_ that bottle.

She emerges slowly from the dark pond and immediately crosses her arms over her bare chest, though not from any sense of needing to protect her modesty. Her body doesn’t take kindly to the sudden change in temperature and it’s sending goosebumps racing along her exposed skin, threatening to send her into full-blown shivers.

She already knows her body is nothing he hasn’t seen before, nothing special. The way John is, the way he preens, the way he seems compelled to show off and flaunt like a fucking peacock, it’s easy to guess that he’s seen more than his fair share of naked women - and probably men - in his day. It inevitably makes her wonder if what she’d heard Hurk say about the cult frowning upon sex and alcohol was actually true, because there’s no way in _hell_ someone like John Seed could be as pure as he wanted people to believe.

And he just stands there and watches her with a dark expression that would make anyone else turn tail and run; never averts his eyes from her own but makes no attempt whatsoever to allow her even a semblance of privacy. It is only when she gets close enough for him to make out the dark bruise blooming on her cheekbone that he falters, his brows pinching almost imperceptibly.

She’s covered in constellations of bruises, cuts and scrapes. That spot on her leg where she’d been grazed by a bullet is one long, itchy bastard of a scab now. The stitches she’d received the first time she’d been brought to Fall’s End are still there, though just about ready to be removed.

Tattoos stand stark against her pale skin in the moonlight; a large moth outlined in dark ink below her belly button. A snake coiling loosely around the hand of a snake charmer up the outside of her right thigh. Blood-red roses winding their way in a half-sleeve around her left bicep.

She stops in front of him, dripping water onto the grass; slick hair plastered over her shoulders, her mascara probably running in streaks down her face. She holds out one hand, wiggles her fingers smugly. “I’d like a drink, if you don’t mind.”

He doesn’t react at all for a few moments. Finally his mouth curls back into that familiar sneer and he raises the bottle, unscrewing the cap. Instead of handing it over to her he takes a long pull, hissing a little through his teeth when he finishes.

And then he hauls back and throws it as far as he can out into the water.

Diana blinks and tracks the whiskey’s flight for a moment, glancing back over her shoulder to see it shattering the water’s surface. It gives him the briefest glimpse of another large tattoo that must cover a good portion of her back.

“What the fu-?”

John lunges just as she’s turning back to start berating him, taking a step forward and striking out like a viper, clamping one hand around her throat. She lets out a surprised little squeal, her eyes going wide in surprise.

“You _stupid…little…fucking…fool.”_

She makes a strangled noise and reaches up to claw at his hand, digging her nails into his tattooed flesh hard enough to draw blood. At almost the same time she instinctively brings her knee up between his legs as hard as she can.

John is quick though, a remarkably reactionary creature, and he simply throws her to the ground before her knee can connect. He is much stronger than anyone would guess, and it is an advantage he calls upon regularly.

Diana gasps and cries out when she lands hard on her hip and one elbow, stunned by the pain for just a moment before frantically lurching forward and scrambling for the pile of clothes near his feet.

John bares his teeth at her and takes a wide step around, absently eyeing the large tattoo that covers almost the whole left side of her back; a stylized portrait of death and the maiden, lines heavy with black ink. “Don’t bother looking for my gun, deputy. It’s already _back where it belongs,”_ he snarls and lunges once more, grabbing her from behind.

He wraps one arm securely around her throat and forcibly hauls her back to her feet, locking his arm so that it’s only just shy of closing off her windpipe.

She coughs and sputters and reaches up once again to claw at him, wriggling like some kind of half-feral creature trying to escape the jaws of a predator.

 _“Just…stop…fighting,”_ he seethes, breath hot against the shell of her ear, wrenching her this way and that in rough little jerks to get her to stop struggling so much.

Diana wheezes and wrenches herself against him, starting to get light headed from the exertion and lack of oxygen. She _can’t_ keep fighting him as she is, even if she wanted to.

His grip loosens ever so slightly when she finally decides to calm her thrashing, and she takes the opportunity to suck in a much-needed breath.

“Do you know what you are,” he asks in a dangerous whisper, jerking her once more to punctuate the question.

She can’t help a wheezy little laugh. She’s pretty sure it’s rhetorical, but that’s never stopped her before.

 _“A stupid…fucking_ fool _…apparently,”_ she parrots hoarsely.

 _“Oh yes,_ but that only scratches the surface, doesn’t it? You are _selfish_. You are _vain_. Negligent, puerile, self-destructive, shortsighted. _Calamitous_. I’m finally starting to see why Joseph has so much fucking _concern_ for you. Left to your own devices, you’d forsake everything in your _wrath,_ wouldn’t you? You’d let it all _burn_ for the sake of your _pride_ —you’d even _kill yourself-”_

He doesn’t get the chance to finish his self-righteous little speech. Diana waits until she can feel his breath against the back of her neck and then she smashes the crown of her head back into his face as hard as she can.

_“Agh-!”_

It has its intended effect. John recoils and loosens his hold on her just enough that it allows her to bite down hard on his forearm, and then she’s finally stumbling free from his grasp, dropping to one knee on the ground to go digging back through that pile of clothing.

She finds the hunting knife she was searching for, yanks it from its sheath and scrambles sideways on hands and knees to avoid his inevitable retaliation, flipping over onto her backside and kicking out with one bare and dirty foot.

With one hand covering his nose protectively, John can’t catch it quick enough; her heel hits him just below his sternum and sends him flailing backwards into the grass. He plants his other palm on the ground, pants as he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. When he opens them and takes his hand from his face, there is blood staining his palm.

Diana scrambles backwards to put a few more feet between them, holds the hunting knife out in front of herself defensively. Her chest heaves and she feels like she can’t get a satisfying breath and she is suddenly _so unbelievably fucking tired._

They stare each other down for a few more moments that feel like an eternity.

Diana blinks rapidly at the sudden burning behind her eyes, and then a broken sob tears its way from her throat and she can’t stop the exhaustion and the indignation and the pure, unadulterated rage from escaping in a shrill and agonizing scream.

“FUCK! _FUCK YOU,”_ she wails and bares her teeth and curls her legs up against her chest, feels tears starting to spill down her cheeks and hates herself that much more for letting him see her cry. “You’re right, okay!? Everything, all of it, _every single fucking nasty thing you can think of!”_

She gasps and hiccups and tries desperately to rein herself in, but she can’t. The levee has broken, and she feels so unbelievably raw; eviscerated. Like she is balanced on the razor edge of a knife, and no matter which way she falls it will inevitably end in ruin. The straight line she’s been trying desperately to walk has flayed her feet, and she will slip in all the blood; it will be her own inadequacy that sends it all hurtling straight to hell.

John sits himself up a bit straighter, just a little surprised by her sudden outburst; he reaches up with the heel of his hand to swipe at the blood trickling from his nose. _“I told you-”_

He cuts himself off as she suddenly springs forward, levering herself off the ground and lunging at him with the knife. A quick doubleback to the vicious, cornered animal, and he supposes he should have expected it; the sin they share allows for nothing less.

John hisses and puts his arm up, just narrowly managing to snatch her wrist in an iron grip before she can plunge the knife into him.

 _“Why the fuck do you care what I do to myself!? You come here to teach me a lesson about the cardinal sin of drunk driving by_ strangling me _to fucking death!?”_ she screams at him, trying to yank her hand from his grip and keep him pinned at the same time.

John almost overpowers her until she thrashes and her knee comes down right onto the open cuts hidden underneath his shirt. At home in pain as he is, it _still_ manages to send the breath hurtling from his lungs; he makes a strangled sound and can’t help doubling over, almost putting his face directly between the modest swell of her breasts.

She bares her teeth and recoils but he hasn’t loosened his grip on her so she reaches out and pushes him back with her free hand. _“You want a fucking confession? How about this? Maybe I_ did _think long and hard about staying behind the wheel of that truck when I_ crashed it,” she spits at him with another rough shove of her hand. “Maybe I fucking _should have._ Between all this bullshit, and you and that _fucking_ sister of yours, I have fucking _had it-”_

John’s eyes immediately flick up to hers. “That’s exactly why you’re coming back to the bunker with me, _deputy,”_ he hisses, his grip tightening like a vice on her wrist as the words spill out of him in a quick and fervent sermon. “Look at yourself. Do you even _see_ how lost you are!? Do you even recognize the _despair_ that’s swallowing you!? I am offering you the chance to be _rid_ of this cancer! I have done _nothing_ but try to help you understand what it is that eats away at you, and you fight me at _every single fucking turn!”_

She jerks her arm again and he still doesn’t let her go. “All you do is brainwash people and fucking blackmail them! I’d rather _die_ than be one of those Blissed-out fucking freaks you call your _flock,”_ she hisses through her teeth, leaning down.

John’s eyes turn icy, his lip curling in righteous fury. “I _told you_ not to leave the valley, not to leave my _protection_. Lo and behold, you didn’t fucking listen. I take it you didn’t have a very good time in the Bliss, did you?”

Her lip trembles. She shakes her head, shoves the heel of her free hand against him again. “Stop fucking saying that! You don’t care about protecting me! You don’t have _any fucking idea_ what it means to protect someone!”

He can’t help a rough chuckle, a small twinkle returning to the cold blue of his eyes. “I don’t have much of a _choice_ in the matter. The Father wants you to say yes. And _I_ need you to do it _willingly_. I told you before, it’s the only way this can end well for you. If you keep antagonizing us, one of my siblings is going to get you. And as I’m sure you’ve realized by now, _they_ won’t take the time to indulge you in such delightful conversations on the _nature of morality.”_

She blinks again, trying to clear the last of the angry tears from her eyes. _“Why,”_ she mutters, attempting to tighten her grip on the knife though her strength is waning and her hand is starting to go numb from the way he has her wrist pinched. “What makes you think _you’re_ different? What makes you think _any_ of this is…is a fucking _indulgence?”_

John grimaces and sighs, his own anger starting to leach away as he shifts himself beneath her. Her knee is still buried in his abdomen, the pain flaring up anew every time she squirms.

His hand moves to press against her thigh and her gaze nervously flicks down to track it. She moves her leg after a second only to see a dark, wet stain beneath, spreading black across the inky blue of his shirt. If the moon wasn’t so bright, it would barely be visible at all.

Her gaze rises to the knife, brows furrowing in clear confusion.

She hadn’t stabbed him, why the hell is he bleeding?

All further questions and the utterly strange, uncalled-for _concern_ she suddenly feels are buried under a fresh wave of adrenaline as his fingers suddenly trail up her neck and along the curve of her jaw. His thumb drags across the tender, swollen flesh on her cheek, streaking through the mixture of mascara and salt tears and pond water. She stiffens and her eyes fly back to his.

“Because when I take people for Atonement, I want to know they’re _choosing it._ I want to hear them say _yes,”_ he explains slowly, leaning upwards, eyes boring into her. “And I want to hear _you_ say yes.”

It’s almost like he takes himself off guard when he hears the words coming from his own mouth. He breathes out another sigh and closes his eyes briefly, sliding his hand further to entwine his fingers into the tangled hair at the back of her head. “I _am_ indulging you because I know what eats away inside you - you think that I don’t, you _continue_ to deny it - but I _do_. This fucking childish little stunt of yours tonight only proves it.”

There it is again. That falling-down-the-rabbit-hole feeling. His eerie snake skin sheds and suddenly he is placid, earnest. His hands on her are persuasive. _Hypnotic_. And she is too tired to keep fighting the capricious whims of all the monsters that dwell within him.

“Have you ever heard the term _l’appel du vide?”_

She shakes her head almost imperceptibly. “N-no…”

“French,” he breathes out low, and suddenly the hand clenched around her wrist loosens up. He smooths his palm up the back of her hand, curling his fingers over her own. “It means _‘the call of the void.’_ The sudden urge to jump from on high, realizing just how easy it would be to turn your gun on yourself, swerve your car into oncoming traffic—or just _crash it,”_ he mutters, pressing her hand and the knife downwards toward the ground, and oh, how easily she lets him.

His lip curls up into the barest of smiles. “Most people ignore it. Touch upon the feeling briefly and then dismiss it as an anomaly. But you and I are not most people…are we?” He leans forward slowly, brings her toward him with that hand on the back of her neck and presses his forehead to hers. “You and I have _both_ heard that call and we have _answered it._ _Danced with it_. Invited it back time and again.”

She starts to struggle again, but so weakly that he has no trouble holding her firm. She feels her breath catch at the shift in the air, the sudden knowledge that he’s disarmed her completely. She’d barely even registered the way he’d removed the knife from her grasp until it was already gone.

“It took a great deal of work, but you have given me your first confession, Diana. Despite your haughtiness and your belligerence and your _incessant protests_ …you’ve surprised me.”

They are so close now his words ghost across her lips. She can smell the alcohol sweetness of the whiskey on his breath just above the encompassing scent of that goddamn cologne. The realization of how utterly vulnerable she is threatens to overwhelm her, makes her heart pound against the brittle cage of her ribs.

The call of the void.

She’s heard it before. It strikes a chord so deep within her that she feels an indescribable ache blooming in her chest at the very recognition. It’s what she blames when she suddenly angles her head forward the few centimeters needed to close the gap between them.

Inviting it.

Him and his family are death, of that she’s sure. And it’s getting harder and harder to ignore his call.

He meets her at the same time.

Their teeth clatter together for a moment.

And then there is only some awful, consuming, magnetic desperation, brought forth into physical reality by the slippery pressing of tongues and teeth biting lips and her hands clasping his bearded face and his palms sliding to her hips to pull her tight against him and dig his fingers into her flesh.

“Come with me,” he speaks directly into her mouth, almost pleading; almost praying. _“Let me cleanse you.”_

She only responds with more teeth and tongue, smothering his voice away, swallowing his words, shutting him up in the only way that makes sense. Her nose smashes against his, causing them both to hiss in pain, recoiling only momentarily before the angle is shifted somewhat and they collide together again.

She was right. John Seed is not so pure as he would have people believe. She can feel how hard he is through the fabric of his stupid designer jeans. It sends a flash of heat through the very center of her and she can’t help grinding her hips down against his, flushing with a darkly forbidden sense of pride when it draws an honest to God _groan_ from his lips.

And just as suddenly that deep, white-hot ache of desire freezes to ice in her veins. Her eyes go wide. He catches her lip in his teeth and pulls on it greedily and then rushes back in to meet her again but she finds the strength to push him back, recoiling with a shuddering gasp.

John pants, wets his lips and smirks, darkened eyes flicking up to hers with a hunger that makes her stomach flip.

What is she doing?

What the _fuck_ is she doing?

Her attention snaps back when she feels his fingers dig into her hips insistently.

“I must admit, this is an…unexpected development.” John swallows a little thickly, apparently in the process of wrapping his own head around this newest predicament they’ve found themselves in. “Nonetheless, we should be on our way to the bunker—all my tools are there, and I already have an idea for where your sloth can go-”

 _“What?”_ She shakes her head, reaches down and pries his hands from her skin, peels herself away from him with more effort than she thinks she should need.

“No—I’m _not_ fucking going back there,” Diana mutters in a rush of breath, scrambling up off him and backing away. She glances over her shoulder toward where her clothes lay in the grass, wary of even turning her back on him.

John sits up straight, at attention, eyes tracking her. “Stop being so _obstinate,_ deputy. Now that we’ve begun, the rest will only be that much easier…”

She tries not to think about what exactly he’s referring to with that. He looks so fucking smug it makes her want to scream again. She starts pulling her clothes back on, trying not to panic, trying not to give him the distinct and very accurate impression that she needs to get the fuck out of here.

He levers himself to his feet with a brief grimace of pain, one hand going to the bloody stain on his shirt. “You must realize we’ve made a breakthrough. _This_ is the first step to your Atonement, Diana. The first step to you _freeing yourself_ from the shackles of your sin. I know what drives you, and I know - together - we can _cast it out-”_

Her mind races as she yanks her ratty t-shirt back on over her head and then bends over to grab her socks. Could she outrun him? With that wound in his abdomen slowing him down she might be able to. She’s still wondering about that, still _concerned,_ and she has to shove it away to the back of her mind. That is a detail that should only concern her so long as it stands to offer some kind of advantage.

She grabs up her flannel, her jacket, her empty thigh holster, her backpack, fumbling with all of it, not having a goddamn single thing to say in response to his infuriating little sermon.

John drifts towards her, absently adjusts his rolled-up shirtsleeves. “My truck is parked just up the hill, it’s only a short walk. I can be giving you your first tattoo in no time at all,” he muses a little too excitedly, and it seems like he’s talking to himself more than he’s talking to her.

The flannel gets hastily pulled on, and then the jacket. There’s only one thing she can do.

 _“Fine,”_ she finally grits out after several lingering moments of silence, glancing at him sideways. “You win. Let’s go.”

His gaze meets hers and he offers her one of those too-warm smiles as he approaches her. His eyes take on that boyish, superficial charm when they crinkle just so, even though she knows there’s nothing behind them. Only shadows; monsters clawing their way to the surface, hungry and slavering.


	14. Reload

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say what you need and I'm ready to go
> 
> I'll tear down the truce
> 
> My head's spinning out of control
> 
> So reload, reload, reload
> 
> -Saint PHNX, Reload

_train hunt kill sacrifice_

Jacob’s little fucking mantra runs through her head like clockwork. She still hears it, even miles from wherever it was he’d taken her.

She doesn’t remember much about being rescued, or waking up in the Wolf’s Den.

She _does_ remember escaping John once he’d led her back to his truck. She hadn’t dared try to go for her knife while they were still down by the water and he was right there watching her with those shrewd eyes like some kind of goddamn sentinel; had to improvise later, left weaponless as she was.

She’d seen a shovel sticking up out of the truck’s bed. And she _hated_ that she felt bad about it. Couldn’t even help croaking out a half-formed apology as she dropped the tool she’d walloped him with and left him unconscious on the side of the road, taking the truck and hightailing it the fuck out of there.

Instead of going back to Fall’s End like a rational, thinking human being, she’d left Black Horse Peak and headed north. North to thinner, cooler air, where maybe she’d be able to quiet her head from all the raucous demons clamoring around inside it. How could she have possibly gone back and faced the others after what she’d just done? They’d have seen it all over her. The guilt and shame and fury she felt at herself.

They probably would have _smelled_ his fucking cologne. Certainly would have seen the marks from where he’d almost strangled her.

She couldn’t deal with that.

She knew Jess and Grace would ask questions, and Adelaide would inevitably butt in, and she’d have no answers to give, and she would have ended the whole sordid, fucked up night blowing up at them and making enemies out of the only friends she had. If she hadn’t already.

So she’d run straight into the waiting clutches of Jacob’s fucking hunters instead.

And he’d put her in a chair, just like Jess said he would. Strapped her down. Given some ultra-Darwinian speech about weakness and strength and sacrifice and somehow half of it actually _made sense_ in some fucked up way. One of the last things she remembered clearly was seeing those hollow eyes of his anchoring to the tender bruises ringing her neck. She’d wondered, quite insanely, if he’d recognized his youngest brother’s handiwork.

Wherever it was Jacob had her, she’d been there for _three days_ before Eli and his crew of Whitetails broke in and found her. He’d apparently been in contact with Dutch since whisking her away to safety, and the old prepper had informed him that the people back in Fall’s End had all feared the worst.

They’d made contact shortly after that, arranged for Jess and Grace to head up into the mountains to meet her. She wasn’t looking forward to it. But she needed to get out of Eli’s bunker; she didn’t like the way that Tammy woman kept eyeballing her, as if Diana might snap and kill them all any second. As if she were just waiting for the chance to put Diana down like a sick animal. As if Jacob had _tainted_ her in some way.

Fuck, maybe he had. But she _can’t remember,_ not really, no matter how hard she tries. Those three days are a blur, a mostly blank smudge of time missing from her memory, punctuated by the horror of watching Staci trail after Jacob like a dog starving for scraps. And those four words he made them listen to and repeat over and over and over again. And that _song_. Every time she tries to recall it her head starts to hurt, a terrible throbbing behind her eyes.

As a favor of sorts for saving her and to get some small amount of traction back against the cult, Eli asked Diana to rescue some Whitetails being held at the park Visitor’s Center. He had his people supply her with weapons and a fresh pair of clothes before she left. She hates looking like some tripped-out country commando, but what she’d been wearing when they found her was soiled beyond saving. And she’s really starting to feel that way, herself, now.

In between snips of that intrusive chant, she thinks of John’s words. His warning.

_If either of them catch you, they are going to hurt you. Jacob will take away your control, and Faith—well, she’ll just take everything._

Fucking John. That fucking dick. It always comes back around to him.

She sucks in a harsh drag from the cigarette pinched between her lips, adjusts the focus on the binoculars she holds up to her eyes. Thankfully, one of the guys in the Wolf’s Den had been at the lumber mill when they’d staged their hostile takeover, and he remembered Diana and her friends saving him. He’d offered her a couple packs as a thank you of sorts and she’d taken them more gratefully than she had the clothes.

She watches the Visitor’s Center and chain smokes and tries not to think about _train hunt kill sacrifice_ and finds herself thinking about John instead and it’s set to drive her absolutely fucking _bonkers._

She lowers the binoculars and plucks the cigarette from her lips, pinching her tired eyes shut and settling back against the trunk of a massive douglas fir. Waits to hear from Jess and Grace. Dreads hearing from them. Dreads seeing them even more.

She’s so exhausted. She’d played it off back at the Wolf’s Den, told Eli she’d go and get his boys - because he is yet one more person in Hope County she now owes her life to - and gotten out of there as fast as she could.

She hasn’t had a moment to just _be_. It’s always running haphazardly from one place to the next, getting her ass whooped seven different ways to Sunday, getting caught up with Joseph’s demented siblings, getting caught up in the drama of her own little group, getting caught up in how much she _owes_ everyone else.

And for what? Is she really saving _anyone?_ Is she really _helping?_ Jess certainly seemed to think so, but Diana isn’t so sure. Every time John comes at her with that bit about how bloodthirsty she is, it rips something open deep inside her; some terrifying, gaping hole that she hasn’t had the fortitude to gaze into. She keeps telling herself it’s survival; kill or be killed.

She’d reasoned with herself after the fourth beer that getting drunk and letting loose might ease some of the tension that’d been ratcheting up within her. She’d only ended up running from Jess like a fucking coward, nursing drunken half-fantasies of destruction and oblivion that had manifested themselves into wrecking more of John’s property and drawing his attention. And the one and only moment of peace she’d found down at that pond, he had utterly destroyed.

That tension exploded into a full-blown manic episode. Her emotions had already been scrambled, but his vexing appearance managed to stir up a volatile and dangerous mixture within her. He’d known _exactly_ where to pick at her to get that goddamned confession. And it was nothing, trifling, really; admitting in a backwards way that she was tired of the fight. Of not feeling like she was good enough. Of briefly entertaining the thought that she could remove herself from all of it.

Her radio crackling startles Diana out of her turbulent thoughts.

_“Diana?”_

She ditches the butt of her cigarette and unclips the CB from her hip. Takes a big, steadying breath. “I’m here, Grace.”

_“We’re comin’ up on the location. ETA...five minutes, probably.”_

“Ten-four. I’ll meet you by the road.”

_“Keep your eyes peeled for a green truck. That’s us.”_

She pushes herself away from the tree, tucks her binoculars back into the knapsack Eli had gifted her. Rubs at her eyes again.

She almost wishes he’d been as forceful about kissing her as he had about trying to fucking strangle her. It would allow her to believe the indignance she’s desperately trying to justify. Naked and disarmed as she was, he’d had every opportunity to force her into any number of unsavory positions. Every opportunity to shame her in the most vile of ways.

But he hadn’t.

He hadn’t forced her to do a _single goddamned thing_ outside of fighting to get his hands off from around her neck. And even then, instead of being furious with her for embarrassing him, leaving him tied up and helpless, it was like...like he was only angry that she’d done a little bit of drunk driving? That she’d been reckless with her own life. And she just _doesn’t_ get it.

These thoughts are a maelstrom. She can’t wrap her head around him. The _train hunt kill sacrifice_ gets louder again, starts to tune out the guilt and horror she still feels at knowing she’d _leaned into it_. Whatever it was, whatever twisted thing had started transpiring between them, she’d been just as guilty of succumbing to it as he had.

She hears a vehicle approaching just as she starts to clear the treeline, pauses and waits there until she can see it coming around the bend further up. It is a dark green truck, and so she steps out and waves her arm to signal them.

Grace cuts off the road and drives the truck up through the grass and wildflowers, tucking it neatly in a space between the trees not too far from where Diana stands.

She makes her way over a little slower than she probably should, tense and apprehensive.

“Thank _fuck.”_

The passenger door slams shut and suddenly Jess is rounding the truck’s front end, almost breaking into a run before she barrels into Diana and wraps her arms around her tightly.

“You _fuckin’ dumbass,”_ she mutters, remarkably sounding more _happy_ than angry. “You scared the shit out of us.”

“I…” Diana blinks owlishly and finally returns the younger woman’s embrace, almost unbelieving, twining her arms around Jess’s shoulders.

She sees Grace emerge from the driver’s side, looking a _hell_ of a lot more like she wants to kick the deputy’s ass into next week, and Diana can’t help the guilty expression that paints her face.

Jess pulls back to hold her at arm’s length, looking her up and down. “Eli said he found you _half-dead_ up at the Vet Center. Are you—did he-?”

Diana knows she’s trying to ask about Jacob. All she can do for a moment is bite the inside of her cheek and nod, glancing back and forth between them. “I—Jesus, I’m _so fucking sorry._ Jess, you were right—about him, what he’s doing up here. He...he _did something_ to me.”

Grace takes a step closer to the two women. “How the fuck did you even end up out here? You _promised me_ you weren’t gonna pull any more shit like this, Diana.”

“I _know,_ I know I did. I just-” she cuts herself off, her gaze flying back to Jess, trying to gauge how best to excuse herself even though she knows no excuse is acceptable. “Look, you already know I’m stupid and reckless as it is, and I will be the _first_ to admit that adding a bunch of beer and liquor on top of that is _always_ a dumb fucking idea. I…” she sighs, shrugging her shoulders a little helplessly. “And I went and did some shit I shouldn’t have. And I paid for it.”

She wants to talk to Jess, _apologize_ to her, but not here. Sometime when they can get a few minutes alone, maybe. As it stands, her friend seems to still be her friend, and that knowledge must tide her over for now.

Grace sucks her teeth and casts her gaze to the side for a moment, clearly not wanting to let go of her ire for such a flimsy and vague explanation. But relief seems to overcome the anger for the time being and she finally makes her way forward to gather Diana up into her own hug. “We heard the Peggies chatterin’ on the radio about another silo goin’ up. And a billboard comin’ down. I’m guessin’ that was you?”

Diana snorts softly and nods against Grace’s shoulder. “Yeah.”

Grace finally pulls back and gives Diana her own lingering assessment. “That motherfucker had you for _three days,_ and now we’re supposed to help you clear out one of his outposts? You sure you’re up for that?”

Diana returns a steely look, pushing _train hunt kill sacrifice_ as far from the front of her mind as she can. “Doesn’t matter. Eli saved my life, got me out of there before that asshole could fuck with my head any more. I owe him for that.”

Grace and Jess glance at each other quickly. “Alright, dep. Whatever you say.”

**. . .**

John reaches up to the corpse that dangles from where it’s chained to the wall. He pushes a woven strand of jimson weed into the hollowed out cavity of its abdomen, twines the end of it around the chest and up around the neck. Adorning it. Absolving it in death. This one would not hear the word, and so they needed to be made an _example_.

He’s got music playing much too loud in the echoing basement of the ranch. The Faust Symphony, in full. Franz Liszt’s manic compositions have been a favorite of his for some time now. They help to drown out the clutter in his head, help him focus. Help smooth out his frayed edges. The work at hand is gruesome and he is covered in smears and splashes of blood, but he is not done yet.

Each carcass that is decorated and hung up through the county is a statement; a testament. This will be their fate if they do not heed Joseph’s words. And it is a kinder death than any the Collapse will bring, of that he is sure.

And every single one of these warnings from here on out he will dedicate to _her_.

The clash of horns and violins cuts off suddenly and he spins around, ready to jump down whoever’s throat that’s dared interrupt him.

Joseph himself stands at the foot of the basement stairs, holding the power cord to the stereo in one hand. He’s unplugged it from the wall socket, stands there looking down at it as if he finds it very interesting.

John stiffens. The skin on his abdomen tightens painfully where the fresh letters he’d cut are finally starting to close up and scab over. He glances down at his hands, covered in blood all the way up to his rolled shirtsleeves.

Grimacing, he makes his way to his workbench, snatching up a towel so that he can at least wipe away the freshest of the carnage.

“How are you, John?”

He stops his scrubbing briefly to glance up at Joseph. Can’t help an almost indignant smirk. “The concussion isn’t serious. A few more days and I should be back to my regular duties; back on patrol.”

Joseph looks at his brother balefully, letting the cord slip from his fingers in favor of worrying at the rosary beads wrapped around one hand. “Yes...one of your men was kind enough to tell me.” He pauses, sighs. “She continues to evade us. And you—you’ve been avoiding _me,_ John. So much so that I felt compelled to come out here to this place to check on you.”

John’s mouth twitches. He knows his brother frowns upon the way he lives, so much more lavish than anything else the Project can boast. For as much as he wants to see the world burn, he cannot escape his desire for the luxury of material comforts. He won’t—not until it’s absolutely necessary. Maybe it’s something Joseph feels like he indulges him in, but _he_ feels that he’s earned it. A small recompense for all his formative years spent in a prison of false penance and pain.

“Well. You’ve checked. Work on the Revelator is nearly complete and by the time I’m back to full duty, I’ll be taking it to Fall’s End to send the deputy a message she will not be able to ignore.”

Joseph considers him as he starts crossing the expanse of hard concrete floor. “What is it you’re doing with her, John? I am preparing to show her what she is unwittingly bringing about the next time she returns to the Henbane, but I can’t help feeling that it _shouldn’t be necessary_. Faith knows the Bliss takes time to be most effective, and Jacob never would have lost her if not for the Whitetails intervening, but you-”

_“Jacob had her?”_ John’s eyes snap back to his brother. He flings the towel back onto the workbench without bothering to look, starting forward brusquely to meet him.

Joseph angles his head, looks at him almost questioningly for a moment. “Yes. Four days ago, his hunters captured her. He thought it best to start training immediately-”

“I wasn’t informed of that.”

“You weren’t answering your _phone,_ John.”

John’s mouth snaps shut. He flexes his fists at his sides.

Joseph sighs, looks down and touches his fingers to his forehead as if it pains him. “I have asked— _begged_ God for some kind of clarity in this situation. Some way that I can be better for you; a better shepherd, a better confidant—a better _brother._ This possessiveness of yours, this obsession, it is only clouding your mind and your heart. It is impairing your judgment. And it is hurting the Project.”

“I have made _progress-!”_

“You have been _neglecting your duties,”_ Joseph replies in a disciplinary tone, pointing a finger at John accusingly. “When was the last time you took a confession? How many Atonements since the deputy began gathering up her Resistance? Hm? When was the last time you _prayed,_ John?”

John falters for a moment.

“Why do I see new infidels strung up almost every day,” Joseph questions, extending a hand up toward the corpse hooked to the wall, “and _no_ new faces with whom I may rejoice and welcome into my family!?”

Very few people in the world have the singular ability to render John Seed silent. But here he stands, a thousand petulant retorts dancing on the tip of his tongue, and yet his mouth stays resolutely clamped shut.

Joseph is right. Every single confession he’s tried to attain since the deputy started her campaign to reclaim Hope County has been for naught. He hasn’t even gone back to the bunker to harass Joey Hudson since the first time Diana escaped from him. His attention has been almost solely focused on _her_.

And she _is_ clouding his judgment.

Joseph moves in front of his brother, lifts his hands to cradle John’s face. “I have seen that our flock will survive if I am forced to walk them through the Gates alone, John, but that does _not_ mean that is the outcome I desire. I should be my brother’s keeper, and yet…”

He sighs heavily, pulls his brother in and leans down to touch his forehead to John’s. “And yet I feel as if I am losing you. Losing your _faith_. After we’ve toiled so hard, built so much together…”

John blinks, tries to swallow down the wave of shame that rises like bile inside him, bitter and caustic. “No, Joseph—of _course_ not…”

He tries to wet his lips with a tongue that suddenly seems incredibly dry. His jaw clenches, and he pulls back from Joseph just enough so that he can look him in the eyes. “I am going to take Fall’s End. I will take _every single one of them._ And they _will_ be cleansed. They _will_ atone. And it will draw the deputy back, make her come _running-”_

Joseph furrows his brows, runs a thumb over his brother’s cheek, next to where a faint purple bruise still paints the skin on and around his nose. “The Collapse has begun; of that, I am sure. The arrival of those... _locusts_...was the breaking of the first seal, the beginning of the final judgment. If the deputy is allowed to continue as she has been, I fear the worst for us. The voice has been unclear to me in the past, and it remains unclear now; but I need you to understand this, John, when I tell you that perhaps her soul is _not_ actually worth trying to save...”

All of the ironclad surety he’d just cobbled up within himself leaches from him like air from a balloon, popped without warning. Normally, when Joseph says jump, he is quick to ask how high. And this should really not be any different. It shouldn’t.

John stands with rusty blood caked up his arms, stained by _years_ of cruelty perpetrated in the name of God. His people always thank him for it in the end, when they feel absolved of their sins; when they’ve spilled their secrets out along with their very blood. And _he_ has bled to match them all.

And when they knew the Collapse was coming, he’d disposed of those who refused to listen. They were beyond salvation and he knew the Collapse would take them anyway. It was a _service_ to relieve them of their suffering before they saw what they’d helped to bring about. He’d never questioned it, never batted an eye at it, really. Not til now.

“Are you _absolutely certain-”_

“No,” Joseph replies quickly. He sighs once more, lets one hand drop to John’s shoulder while the other falls back to his side. “But I am asking you to consider it in any further interactions you have with her. It is clear now that Deputy Baker only speaks one language; that of violence. And if we must act as the sword, rather than the hand extended in peace, well...so be it.”

Joseph pats John’s shoulder, gives him a look that seems to see deeper than even he is comfortable with; and that is impressive, because Joseph knows the demons that still writhe and spew sin from within him. Apparently, thanks to the infinitely troublesome deputy, a few more have cropped up in the meantime.

“Take care of that concussion, John. And think about what I’ve said. Pray on it. I’d like to see you become an old man in the paradise we’ve prepared for. And she stands to destroy that vision.”

Joseph casts one more lingering glance up at the corpse on the wall before leaving him alone in the basement with death and all of his demons.

John flexes his fists, lets out a ragged, shuddering sigh. And then he turns back to the gruesome sculpture and _rips_ it down off the hooks it hangs from with all the force he can muster, throwing it to the ground where it lands with a sickening, squelching thud.

He kicks it with enough force to send it rolling onto its back, railing and raging against his own mutinous urges. It is gluttony and pure avarice mixing potently with his wrath that tears at him, that twists his desire so far out of alignment from his duty.

Is all the progress he’s made with her meant for absolutely _nothing?_ The closer they get to each other, the more they dance around each other, the more he sees himself in the mirror’s reflection she unwittingly casts. They are two sides of the same coin. The thing that writhes and spreads with dark intent within him is well-rooted in her as well; he recognizes it, can practically _smell_ it rotting away inside her.

The horrifying truth of the matter, the very core of his problem is simple; he does not wish to kill her. Any of her little friends, any of the other heathens running around out there toting the flag of the resistance with such brazen, stupid arrogance he would _gladly_ gather up and mow down.

But after what came to pass between she and him, something has shifted. His wrath has been feeding off of hers, growing hungrier with every interaction where she somehow manages to outplay him. Joseph is right, in a way; she has proven to be his equal in the language of violence. But he is certain there is another language rooted within it, tied to it. And it kills him that he desires to _learn_ it.

He makes his way to the radio, yanking it from its receiver and bringing it to his lips. “The Collapse is upon us, brothers and sisters. You all know what to do. This is what the Father prepared us for. Gather provisions, take whatever you believe will help us survive. We need more men in the sky, more roadblocks to help us weed out the sinners. Nick Rye has a plane; _I want it._ Mary May Fairgrave has that ostentatious big rig; _bring it to me._ And then, brothers and sisters—then we will march on Fall’s End and _take_ the wayward souls who’ve been evading us.”

He slams the radio back down on the desk, huffs out a tense breath and spins, reaching up to swipe his palm over his hair. This will bring her running back, he’s sure of it.

And what will he do when he has her?

John jerks almost like someone startling themselves awake, reaches down to start fumbling with the buttons of his vest. He sheds it haphazardly, starting in on the shirt next, full of unresolved doubt and anxious energy. At the same time he feels a sharp spike of adrenaline at the very thought of squaring off with her again.

He’s expended so much effort to keep her alive, wasted hours upon hours fantasizing about exactly where he’ll map out her sins upon her flesh, only to be told, in so many words, it might not even fucking matter.

After he’s shed his shirt the pocket knife makes its appearance. He raises his arm, looks at the _greed_ scrawled in scars down the inside of his bicep.

Maybe if he cuts some of it out, some of _her_ will be cut out with it.


	15. Fools Rush In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
> 
> And so I come to you, my love, my heart above my head
> 
> Though I see the danger there
> 
> If there's a chance for me, then I don't care
> 
> -Brook Benton, Fools Rush In

_“Dom to Brian. Yo, Brian, come in. Uh, over.”_

Diana rolls her eyes and heaves out a pained sigh as their radios simultaneously pop and crackle with static, Sharky’s voice just barely coming through.

She readjusts her grip on the steering wheel, reaches down and unhooks the CB from her belt. “Sharky, I told you not to call me that. I’ve never even _seen_ those movies, and it’s just...kinda fuckin’ weird, dude.”

_“Okay, let’s table that for now, ‘cause that’s actually unbelievable and I’m a little ashamed that I bared my soul to you like that and you don’t even get the reference, but, uh, listen...we got a problem, dep.”_

Diana’s brow furrows. She glances over at Grace, who looks back with clear concern painted on her face. Jess pokes her head in between them from the back seat of the truck’s cab, equally interested in what this problem might be.

_“Me and Hurky and Auntie Adelaide just got back from across the river, and, uh...you ladies might wanna mosey on back, yourselves.”_

“Sharky, what the _fuck_ are you trying to say, man,” she snaps back a little more curtly than she should, anxiety starting to writhe inside her.

_“Fall’s End has been relieved of the rezeezy, dep. This place is a fuckin’_ ghost town. _Peggies marked the place all up. We’re...they came...took everybody.”_

Diana slows the truck to a stop in the middle of the road. She feels the distinctive tingling of dread seeping down through her body in a cold wave. Feels her chest start to tighten.

_“Fuck_ no, you gotta be kidding!”

_“Shh!”_ Diana’s hand flies from the steering wheel, waving vaguely in Jess’s direction. She presses the talk button again, hard. Her hand shakes a little and she tries to steady it, tries to will away the immediate fear that everyone is dead. “But, you three—you’re okay? I mean, what’s going on? Are...are there bodies!?”

All they get is another few seconds of static before Sharky’s voice finally comes through again. _“-any bodies...buildings on fire...old fuckin’ cross-of-Eden’s-dick painted in the middle of the street…”_

The signal is getting weaker. His voice is cut through with static, and it soon becomes all of what they hear.

_“Fuck!”_ Diana chucks the radio to the floor between her feet in a fit of frustration.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Jacob’s guys cut the fuckin’ signal. They got control of the towers up here,” Jess fumes, suddenly slapping her hand against the back of Diana’s seat. “Forget Wheaty’s fuckin’ supplies, man, we gotta get back there.”

“No shit,” Diana growls, throwing the truck into reverse and twisting herself around in the seat to check the road behind them. “And now we probably have to outrun his fucking hunters, too.”

“Don’t worry about that, just get us back to the valley,” Grace tries to reassure her, reaching down to grab her rifle.

**. . .**

They make it back in record time. Diana is somewhat surprised they even let her drive at all after the little stunt she pulled the other night, but despite that, she _is_ a good driver. Narrowly misses crashing them into a herd of bison that decide to cross the road in front of them on their mad flight from the mountains, but that’s neither here nor there.

The town isn’t completely destroyed, but it’s certainly got John’s signature all over it. There are a few houses still burning, and most of the Spread Eagle’s windows are smashed out. It seems like everything still standing has been spray-painted, tagged with Eden’s Gate crosses and ominous threats masked in bible verses.

They see the huge cross Sharky must have been talking about painted right in the middle of town, stretching from one side of the road to the other. The sloping roof of the church reads _‘whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned’_ in sloppy, dripping white letters.

They don’t see any bodies littering the streets, though. Just some bloodstains and spent bullet casings, and those in and of themselves don’t bode well.

Sharky, Hurk and Adelaide come out of the bar to meet them when the women pull up out front, all three of them looking unusually wan in the golden hour of the afternoon. Boomer busts out right on their heels, barking a few times before barreling between them to make straight for Diana.

Grace lets out a low whistle as she steps down from the truck and turns there in the street, taking it all in uncomfortably. “Guess John got tired of waitin’ around. I wonder what the fuck finally set him off…”

Diana’s mouth curls and she doggedly ignores the question, slamming the driver’s side door shut with one hand while the other absently ruffles Boomer’s ears. She eyes their companions, searching them for anything, any kind of an answer. “Have you found anyone? Do you know _anything?”_

Just as Adelaide and Sharky both start to speak, the radio interrupts them.

Diana feels an icy spike of expectation in the split second before a voice comes through; she immediately thinks it’s going to be John Seed, all caustic fury and self-righteousness.

_“Hello? Hello? Is there anybody left out there? This is Nick Rye. I could use some help!”_

Diana’s radio is still sitting on the floor of the truck, but Adelaide is quick. She looks down and unclips her own from her belt, brings it up to her lips as she glances around the group. “Hey, Nicky. This is Adelaide Drubman. We hear you loud and clear, honey.”

Addie volunteers to fly Diana and Jess out to Rye and Sons Aviation after their brief chat on the radio. It wouldn’t have been a long drive, but the chopper is even quicker and it affords them a bird’s eye view of what’s happening down on the ground. As much as it terrifies her now every time she has to fly, Diana swallows down her anxiousness and buttons it up tight as she can.

Addie explains that Nick and his wife are expecting any day now, and that means she _has_ to bury her fear. Hope County seems to be eerily devoid of children, and there’s no way in hell she can refuse to try and save one that’s still yet to be born. She’s not that callous, not yet, not by a long shot.

The situation looks dire though, as they clear the trees and fly in over the airstrip. Peggies swarm the property and they can see just one lone gunman defending the garage near the house. Addie flies them in low to strafe the cultists flooding from the treeline, and they just narrowly avoid getting struck by a beat up old bright yellow Kimberlite that haphazardly leaves the runway as they’re coming in.

Diana closes her eyes and clenches her teeth, one hand leaving the rifle in her lap to grab at a safety handle as Addie swerves the chopper hard to the right. The cabin shakes and the sound of the blades is deafening. She does not enjoy the way the sudden lilting makes her insides shift, gets rid of gravity for a few moments and reminds her _far_ too much of the night they’d gone to arrest Joseph.

“Aw, _hell,”_ Adelaide cries out, whipping her head around to track the plane as it ascends and leaves them in the dust. “I think those cock-knockers just took off with his plane!”

“Jesus _fuck!_ You gotta let me down, Addie!” Diana yells a little shrilly. “The hangar! Take us back to the hangar!”

“Ten-four, sugar! Hold onto your butts, ladies!” Adelaide shifts the cyclic to the left and brings them around in a narrow turn, throwing Diana’s guts in the opposite direction and making her groan sickly.

Addie reminds Diana of the rope ladder tucked in under her seat and she throws it down as they fly in over the roof of the hangar. As soon as they’re within reasonable distance she glances back at Jess, who’s half-stood already with a hand on the back of each of their seats. They nod at each other and Diana crawls down, descending a few rungs before deeming it safe enough to jump the rest of the way.

She heaves a sigh of relief that dies halfway out of her mouth as bullets start whizzing past her. She flops down to her belly on the roof, motions to Jess to do the same as soon as she’s dropped down.

“You think you can get to the ground!? I can cover you, pick ‘em off from up here, but-”

“Yeah yeah, don’t worry about me! Those fuckers’ll never see me in the trees!”

Diana glances over her shoulder as Jess turns and crawls toward the ladder at the opposite side of the roof. She pushes down the anxiety that eats at her, faces forward once more and shimmies toward the edge with her rifle held out in front of her. The house and the garage both come into view, and the raucous sound of gunshots is now nearly enough to overpower the constant thrumming of Tulip’s blades as Addie flies higher in an effort to avoid getting shot.

Diana props herself up and presses the butt of the gun against her shoulder, peering through the scope. She spots the lone defender getting cornered back toward the house and begins scanning the area between them for cultists she can pick off.

**. . .**

When things finally settle, the sun is nearly set.

Diana scrambles down off the roof of the hangar, can hear yelling from over by the house as she jogs across the airstrip. Addie’s settled the chopper already, and it looks like both her and Jess have reached Nick Rye first.

_“We’re fuckin’ trapped!”_

“Now, Nick, _calm down_ honey. That ain’t _exactly_ true-”

Nick rounds on Adelaide from where he paces back and forth in front of them, waving his gun. “I swear to God I am gonna _kill_ that son of a bitch, John Seed! You saw them Peggies take off with my plane,” he asserts loudly, pointing a finger angrily at the older woman. “That was our _only_ chance of gettin’ out!”

Diana comes to a stop in front of the little group and Nick turns on her, eyes hidden behind the reflective aviators he still wears even though it’s twilight. He’s so worked up, he probably hasn’t even noticed . “Look, if I know the cult, they’ve taken it to John’s ranch. It’s got the only other airstrip big enough to land her. Now I know you don’t know me and you don’t owe me a goddamn thing, but...without that plane, me ‘n my wife, we’re _fucked!”_

Diana rests her rifle over her shoulder and levels him with a pointed grimace. “John’s ranch, huh,” she muses coldly.

She feels her ire rising, starts to remember the whole reason they’re out here in the first place now that the heat of battle is wearing off. He came in and he _took them_. Mary May, Jerome, Casey, _countless_ others that had been sheltering in town. John and his people had swept through and upturned everything they had tried to save. And she can’t help but to think it’s all because of _her._

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but...I can’t leave Kim, and–and I’m _desperate,_ here,” Nick pleads, head swiveling between the three of them.

“Oh, it’s not a lot to ask _at all,”_ Diana replies icily.

Jess and Adelaide glance at each other apprehensively.

“Where is it?”

“Not–well, not far, just to the west of here,” Nick replies quickly. “Just _be careful._ John keeps men at that house all goddamn day ‘n night-”

Diana nods absently, refocuses her attention on Adelaide. “How do you feel about staying on the ground for a while?”

Addie blinks a little owlishly, taken off guard by the question. “I–listen, I can hold my own just fine, darlin’, but let’s think about this for a second! Now, I ain’t sayin’ I _haven’t_ wanted to see the inside of that man’s little woodland palace, but why don’t we call for some backup-?”

“No, we don’t have time,” Diana says with a shake of her head. “Better to go in quiet, just a few of us, and with night on our side. And we can’t risk getting on the radio now, anyway. John’ll be listening.”

Jess nods her agreement, shifting on her feet restlessly; she’s never turned down an opportunity to shuffle some Peggies off the mortal coil, and she isn’t about to start now. _“Hell_ yeah. Maybe we’ll even catch that sick fuck at home,” she muses cruelly, flexing a fist around the grip of her bow. “I’d love to put an arrow through that bastard’s heartless fuckin’ chest.”

Diana feels a distinct twinge of unease cutting through her anger, shakes her head again vehemently. “If he’s there, we need to try and keep him _alive_. I’m willing to bet he took everyone from Fall’s End up to that bunker and we _need him_ if we wanna get in there.”

She turns back to Nick and gives him a final nod, making her decision known. They’re going to John’s ranch.

“Uh, before you go,” Nick stammers a bit before extending a hand out towards her. “Name’s Nick Rye.”

She clasps his hand briefly, gives it a shake. “Diana. Don’t worry, we’ll get you your plane back. I’ve got my own score to settle with John Seed, and the idea of fucking up his _house_ in the process...well, that sounds like a pretty good way to end my day.”

“Good luck, partner. I’d say I owe you my firstborn for this, but...well, the truth is, I’d kinda like to keep him.”

That gets an honest, though rather squirrelly laugh out of Diana as she turns away, nodding her head again in some kind of amusement. “That’s just fine with me, Nick.”

**. . .**

They commandeer one of the cult trucks left behind at the outskirts of Rye and Sons, driving west until Adelaide points out a long dirt driveway cutting between two huge fields off to their left. Since they’re in a cult vehicle, Diana decides to follow it up until they find a stand of trees that will serve to offer them some cover upon their final approach.

She cuts the headlights and turns the truck off the road, only glancing back once at the signs spread out at the edge of the field behind them; YES spelled out in three separate letters, creating a smaller version of the eyesore he’s got up on the side of that mountain. She toys with the idea of slapping some remote explosives on each one; maybe on their way out she can, but not now.

Diana kills the engine, drenching them in darkness and silence, turns to look at Addie in the passenger seat. “You _can_ fly a plane, right?”

“Of course. I learned on both. What is it you’re plannin’ here, deputy?”

“When we find it, I’m gonna need you to fly it out of here.”

“Not a problem. And, uh...what are we gonna do if we find John here…?”

Diana clenches her hands around the steering wheel. What _will_ she do if they find John here? She hasn’t even had time to consider it. That possibility has just been festering at the back of her mind, spreading into a hundred other unpleasant scenarios that she refuses to focus on.

“Like I said...try and keep him alive. And don’t let him get his hands on you,” she mutters, unwilling to meet Addie’s eyes again.

Jess bangs a fist against the bed of the truck, startling them both before hopping out and coming up to Diana’s window. “We gonna do this or what,” she hisses quietly when Diana rolls it down.

“Yeah. We’re gonna do this.”

The three women gear up, checking their weapons and ammo before leaving the truck there in the trees.

“We scout first. I want this as quiet as possible for as _long_ as possible. So Jess, you’re on point here,” Diana whispers just loud enough for the other two to hear as they creep through the dark and the underbrush. “Anybody patrolling the outskirts, we take them down first. Then work our way further in.”

The other two acquiesce readily enough. Soon they see lights coming into view through the trees, at least one up high on some kind of lookout tower.

They creep around the eastern side of the property, skirting narrowly around the edge of a precipitous cliff that borders the backside of the expansive ranch house, noting the positions of guards and what routes they seem to be following.

Diana gives out a few more hasty instructions before bidding them to split off in different directions and wishing them good luck. Addie heads back to their right, Jess heads to the left with the aim of taking out the sniper they caught a glimpse of up in that tower. And Diana stays put for the time being, pulls out her binoculars to watch for the second that sniper goes down.

As soon as she sees his silhouette drop, she hops the fence they’d been huddled up against, tucking the binoculars away and heading straight for the house. She presses herself up against the corner, partially hidden behind a large arborvitae.

When a man with a cross tattooed on his forehead rounds the corner to make his way through the backyard, she pounces. Rifle slung back over her shoulder in favor of a hunting knife, she clamps her hand over his mouth and drags the blade across his throat in one fierce, ragged motion.

She lets him drop to the ground after a few moments when she’s sure he’s bled out too much to make any noise, grabs him by one leg and drags him as quickly and quietly as she can underneath that arborvitae.

She makes her way into the strange little open arcade that separates the two portions of the main house, pausing in the shadows there to watch two guards posted on the front patio, smoking cigarettes and jabbering at each other in hushed voices.

Just as she’s about to emerge with a loose plan for taking the both of them out, a few rapid shots go off in the darkness back by a large outbuilding.

Suddenly all bets are off.

The two guards jump, startling to attention and lifting their weapons; but before they can run off toward the commotion, Diana yanks her own gun from over her shoulder, pulls back the pin and mows them down with a second burst of loud shots that ring out in the night. Not quiet at all. It can’t be helped now.

Before she can run off to check and see if her friends are okay, two more cultists bust through the ranch’s front door in a flurry of indignant shouts. One of them barrels right into her just as she’s leaving the arcade, tripping and knocking her to the ground and sending the gun clattering across the patio.

She cries out and elbows him right between his eyes after her shoulder hits the the ground, an instinctive and desperate flurry of adrenaline fueling her. She squirms and grunts in pain underneath him and tries to reach for her knife.

His partner, flummoxed and taken completely by surprise, attempts a shot in the darkness that only lodges a bullet straight into his buddy’s back. He grunts and jerks and then goes limp on top of her, eyes glazing over as a last long breath wheezes from his drowning lungs.

She panics. Having a human shield isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the dead weight of him effectively crushing her is a problem in and of itself.

“Fuckin’ sinners-!”

Diana gasps in a lungful of air and tries to pull the gun from the dead man’s hands, but it’s pinned between them; what might be the trigger guard digs into her stomach painfully.

_“Fuck,”_ she hisses, changing her tactic and trying to bring a knee up to lever him off instead when the second Peggie suddenly crumples to the ground near her feet. She huffs out a breath and cranes her neck over the dead man’s shoulder, blinking in startled confusion until she finally makes out the carbon arrow protruding from his partner’s neck.

As soon as she throws herself back to the ground in a blessed moment of relief, Jess’s face is all she can see when she casts her gaze upwards.

“You okay, dep?” Jess asks as she takes a wide step around and bends down to help roll the man’s body off of her.

“Yeah,” she replies in a rapid exhale. “Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.” She clasps onto the arm Jess extends down and lets the hunter pull her to her feet.

Another round of shots go off back near that outbuilding and Jess pulls her hand away, waving anxiously. “C’mon!”

Diana scrambles to grab the Peggie’s rifle, closer than her own, checking the magazine quickly as she follows Jess back toward the tower.

“Plane’s right here in the hangar,” Jess whispers harshly over her shoulder, nudging her bow toward the big building they’re currently skirting.

“Any sign of John,” Diana asks a little hoarsely, still trying to piece her composure back together.

Before Jess can answer, a shrill battle cry erupts from around the corner and they come upon Adelaide, who starts emptying bullets into three more Peggies who’ve come at her from the open entry to the hangar.

Diana spins on her heel and manages to put down one of the men trying to strafe to the side, while Addie’s assault quickly eliminates the other two.

The older woman breathes heavy for a few moments before easing her gaze to her two companions. “Fuckin’ Peggie scumsuckers.”

Addie spits in their direction and then scans the open yard and the airstrip, ears perked for sounds of any more assailants. When all seems clear, she lets the gun drop to her side in favor of reaching back and scrounging in one of her back pockets.

She comes up with a crumpled pack of cigarettes, nudging it in the direction of the open hangar before flipping the top and pulling one out with her teeth. “There she is,” she mumbles around the cigarette, stuffing the pack back where it came from. “Just one problem. She’s only a two-seater.”

Diana shakes her head, glancing back toward the plane, still apprehensive and knowing they probably don’t have the luxury of time. “That’s fine. You two take it and get out of here.”

“What the _fuck,_ Di-”

She puts a hand up to stop Jess. “Addie, can you go make sure the Peggies didn’t fuck with it too bad and radio Nick, let him know you’re coming back?”

Adelaide takes a drag from her cigarette and nods as she waves out the match she’d used to light it. “Sure thing. I hope you know what you’re doin’, honey,” she says with a raised eyebrow and a pointed look before meandering past them toward the hangar.

Diana turns back to Jess only to receive a rough shove on the shoulder.

“What the hell!? I ain’t leaving you here by yourself! What about John fuckin’ Seed!?”

_“John fuckin’ Seed_ obviously isn’t here,” Diana hisses, pushing back against Jess and placing her own hands upon the other woman’s shoulders. “You think he would’ve slept through the goddamn _racket_ we just made? Now, _listen to me._ Somebody needs to stay and go through this place. We need info on the bunker, on what their plans are, something— _anything.”_

“So it’d go quicker if there were two people doin’ it!”

“I _agree,_ but it’s also a hell of a lot safer with just one person. I can be in and out of there if anyone comes, _especially_ when I’m not worrying about somebody else!”

Jess looks at Diana warily, her lip curling in that familiar, incredulous way she has. Her gaze shifts away and then she finally gives a moody shrug. “Whatever. You’re gonna do what you want, anyway, right? Shouldn’t even bother volunteering myself...”

Diana sighs, tightens her hands on the hunter’s shoulders to bring her attention back. “Look at me. I’m _sorry_ about the other night. I was drunk and...I got a _lot_ of shit that starts to unpack itself when I’ve had too many. It wasn’t your fault and I had no right to go off on you like that. But _this_ isn’t me wandering off all sad and stupid-drunk.”

Jess eyes her, glancing back only briefly when the plane’s engine roars to life just behind them, choking out the eerie silence that had fallen over the ranch.

“Goddamnit. Let _me_ stay and search the place-”

_“No,_ Jess. You two have already been through hell and back with me today, I am _not_ gonna ask you to put yourself in any more danger. I’m trying _not_ be an asshole this time, okay? Isn’t that what friends do?”

Jess huffs out a frustrated sigh, glancing back toward the plane once more. Adelaide appears to be ready to go. She meets Diana’s eyes, pokes her in the chest hard with one finger. “You meet us back at Nick’s place once you’re done. _No fucking around._ Okay?”

_“Trust me._ I hear _anyone_ coming, I am a fuckin’ ghost. I promise you. Plus, there’s...well, there’s something else I need you two to do for me before you bring that plane back.”


	16. Mad, Mad Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm glad
> 
> You've arrested my soul
> 
> And now my mad, mad heart has a singular goal
> 
> In this world
> 
> And I'm mad
> 
> For you to be my girl
> 
> -Reverend Horton Heat, Mad, Mad Heart

Diana makes her way inside the ranch after Adelaide and Jess take off with Nick’s plane. She doesn’t really know what she’d expected, and she can’t deny the morbid curiosity that’s been welling up within her since they first set eyes on the palatial lodge.

The hardwood interior is expansive; a huge stone fireplace decorates the center of the living area while taxidermied animals prowl the darkened corners with dully shining eyes.

She keeps looking at them out of the corner of her eye as she makes her way past, scanning the large display case full of cult paraphernalia before briefly assessing the contents of the coffee table.

There is a piece of paper sitting on the couch that catches her attention. Glancing around once more, she takes a big step over the bearskin rug on the floor and snatches it up, squinting in the darkness.

“Dearest Brother Joseph, _ugh_...gag me.” She sneers and scans the rest of the letter, feeling her heart dropping into her stomach the further along she gets.

_As promised, the town of Fall’s End is no longer a threat._

_There was bloodshed._

_T_ _he ones we saved are well on their way to joining your flock._

_The ones who fought are dead._

_And the sinners who fled - - I’ll catch them._

She crumples the paper up in her fist and throws it, her anger sparking up anew. Fights back the sudden overwhelming urge to just start _trashing_ the place. She pinches her eyes shut for a moment, breathes deep.

The silence is bad. When things go quiet, she still hears _train hunt kill sacrifice_ flashing through her subconscious, embedded there like some kind of subliminal parasite.

She turns around, glances up at the second floor landing and notes the single door up there. If she’s judged the layout of this weird ass house correctly, it only leads to an outside balcony.

She looks down, centers her gaze on a large set of double doors that stand closed before her, just begging to be opened. Making her way over, she tries the knob on one and finds it unlocked.

That hardwood continues into a dimly lit hallway that seems to lead into a large and spacious kitchen. She can see the edge of an island and a few expensive chrome appliances, a stark contrast to the rustic ostentatiousness of the rest of his home.

It reminds her of him. A log cabin fit for a mad king; it’s like an extension of himself. Try as he might to conform in some way to the rugged Montana countryside, something just doesn’t quite jive, doesn’t quite _fit_. She wonders what demons and dark secrets might lurk inside this place, if what she’s seen of the man himself is any indicator.

A darkened alcove to the left reveals itself to be another staircase, walled in unlike the one out in the living room. Diana knows he was a lawyer; there _must_ be an office or a study hidden somewhere. Her instincts tell her to check upstairs and she’s just about to put her hand on the banister and make her way up when a noise from the kitchen stops her in her tracks.

 _“Shit!”_ She jumps into the stairwell at the very last second before a man comes careening at her from around the corner, yelling incoherently; no gun drawn, which makes her think they must be under strict orders not to damage a single thing inside John’s home. She has to commend the man for thinking he might be able to take her out without the aid of a gun. The threat of John’s wrath must be great indeed, to willingly leave oneself so vulnerable.

Diana, on the other hand, doesn’t give a shit about potentially painting his walls with blood and bullet holes.

The Peggie keeps on going past the landing when he misses her, unable to slow his own momentum fast enough. Before he can fling himself around to come back, she’s already unshouldered her rifle and pulled back the pin.

A single loud burst resounds and he grunts, stumbling for a second before putting a hand to the hole that now decorates his chest. “Jo— _fuck…”_

He sputters, his eyes moving past the barrel of her gun to look back toward the kitchen. Diana furrows her brows, watches him apprehensively. She tightens her grip on the rifle, finger hovering over the trigger.

Just as she’s about to put another bullet in him, he lunges past the landing back the way he came, his hand going out to press against the wall, leaving a bloody trail behind as he staggers back toward the kitchen.

“The _fuck…?”_

Diana steps down off the stairs, trails behind him cautiously. Watches as he makes his way to the middle of the room before finally crumpling to his knees on the floor just beside the island.

She creeps forward a few more steps, keeps her ears peeled for any more would-be assailants. There is a strange sort of sound she can hear upon entering the kitchen, but it’s so muffled, she almost thinks it’s just white noise; the sound of residual electricity running through the wiring.

She reaches up and swipes her palm down over her mouth, forgetting about searching the second floor in her unease over the dead man’s odd behavior.

As she carefully sets her rifle down on the marble slab atop the island, her eyes land on the refrigerator just to her left. Eli made sure she ate and drank plenty of water before leaving the Wolf’s Den, but she’s had nothing since then.

Glancing around once more, checking the man on the floor, she skirts the island and makes her way to the fridge, hoping she won’t open it to find some serial killer cliché; jars full of preserved appendages or severed heads in the vegetable drawers.

She is relieved to find it normal inside, but sparse. There are bottles of water down on the bottom shelf and she leans down with every intention of grabbing one.

The room fills with music suddenly, some bombastic classical number that is so startling it makes her jump and smack her head off the lip of the appliance.

Diana spins, sees John Seed himself standing in a darkened doorway on the other side of the kitchen, his head tilted ever so slightly. He is disheveled, tired-looking; shirt half-untucked and stained with dark splotches, his usually neatly pressed jeans rumpled like he’s been sleeping in them for a few days.

It seems as if mass-kidnapping takes its toll on a man.

His gaze shifts from her to the cultist currently decorating the expensive hardwood with blood.

“Deputy,” he acknowledges curtly as he steps wide over the corpse on the floor. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Diana shuts the door with her foot and leans back against it, tries her damndest to recapture some semblance of nonchalance. “You borrowed Nick Rye’s plane and forgot to give it back. And he kinda needs it, so...I took it.”

John shows her a strained smile, all narrowed eyes and pinched brows. But she sees his fists clenched at his sides, flexing with restrained violence.

“There’s some other things I’m gonna need back, too. Some _people,”_ she says as smug as she can, twisting the cap off the bottle of water she’d managed to grab.

A harsh chuckle escapes him. He stays separated from her by the island, doesn’t make a move to get closer. “They have been chosen for Atonement, deputy. You should be _thanking_ me. Eden’s Gate will keep them safe, so long as they are willing to shed the burden of their sins…”

She stops mid-chug. Lowers the bottle and wipes her forearm across her mouth as her gaze recenters on him, showing a toothy sneer.

Her radio crackles to life, cutting through the discordant symphony still echoing up from the basement.

_“Hey sugar. Just lettin’ you know we are approaching the target.”_

They can hear whooping in the background, and she knows it’s Jess; knew she wouldn’t be able to say no to the task Diana asked of her.

_“Fuck yeah! Fuck you, John Seed!”_

John’s mouth twitches, a glint of something like worry crossing his expression. “Was that... _Adelaide Drubman,”_ he asks incredulously, voice tensing to match his posture.

“It sure was,” Diana confirms almost happily as she sets the bottle down and sweeps out from behind the island to head back down the hallway, not even sparing him a parting glance.

John clenches his fists, every nerve pulled taught like a coiled spring. He’d been careless, running on little to no sleep, haunting that basement for days before and after raiding Fall’s End; and now she’d _snuck up on him,_ entranced as he was with all of his own mutinous thoughts about what exactly he was going to do with her.

He’d been sure she’d try to storm his bunker first, had most of his own guards re-positioned up at Black Horse to make sure she was taken without too much of a fight. She’s surprised him once again, thrown him off balance.

He follows the deputy like a shadow as she makes her way carelessly outside. Every second that passes he thinks he should pounce; grab a table lamp and smash it over the back of her head, or simply whip out his pocket knife and rush up behind her to slit her throat and be done with it.

But instead he almost finds himself _laughing,_ insanely focused on and amused by the ridiculous outfit she’s sporting. It’s not her at all. No tight black jeans, inevitably dirty and ripped at the knees. No atrocious baseball cap with _Rye and Sons_ or _Spread Eagle_ scrawled across the front. She’s in baggy camo cargo pants and a windbreaker, typical _Whitetail_ regalia.

It almost makes him stop in his tracks when John realizes he is _thankful_ to that traitor Eli Palmer. Eli had rescued her from Jacob’s testing facility up at the Veteran’s Center, essentially returned her to him when his brother wouldn’t have.

A wave of shame rises behind the gratitude; he knows what Jacob does up in the mountains, has _supported_ it, regularly sent him both people and animals to be experimented on, broken and molded into more of their Chosen.

She steps out into the night unimpeded, lights up a cigarette and stuffs the lighter back into the pocket of her borrowed pants.

 _“Deputy Baker,”_ he finally asserts, coming up on her before his web of doubts threatens to paralyze him.

 _“Shh.”_ She comes to a stop near the edge of the patio, looking north toward the mountains expectantly.

“Oh-ho _no,”_ he rattles out indignantly, reaching out to grab her arm.

John stops when the explosion catches his eye. Three-quarters of the S and half of the E up on the mountainside are suddenly gone. _Obliterated._

He can see fire sparking out there, a plume of dust or smoke starting to rise above the darkened treeline.

He stands there, jaw going slack, anything he was about to say drying up in his throat. Finally at a loss for words, hand frozen, outstretched partway toward her.

Diana’s turned around by now, watching him intently, big dishwater eyes searching his face with studious concentration. “Hm. Beautiful.”

His gaze finally flicks back to her; tremulous, almost unbelieving. _“What,”_ he croaks.

“This. _You._ Finally taken off guard. Stunned into _blessed silence.”_ She folds her arms and tries to savor the moment, tries to etch his shock and incredulity into her memory.

John’s mouth finally hinges shut into an indignant frown. His hand closes into a fist. He straightens himself, a flurry of emotions racing behind the icy blue pools of his eyes. The moon decorates him in a flattering glow despite the imminent sense of danger he emanates.

Diana smiles ever so slightly with the barest crinkling of her eyes. She lifts the cigarette very casually, takes a slow drag, doesn’t take her gaze off him. Dull; almost disinterested, even. But certainly triumphant.

She is surprised when John reaches out and snatches the cigarette from between her fingers, turning it with a smooth angling of his wrist.

 _“Deputy,”_ he says reproachfully with a sigh and a click of his tongue, “don’t you know these things’ll kill you?”

She watches him as tattooed fingers carry the cigarette up to his own lips, where he inhales slowly and watches her right back and lets a thin plume of smoke flow from his nostrils. He’s shed the fury she’d seen welling up in him almost as fast as it had begun to manifest.

And they watch each other.

And finally, _finally,_ she can’t take it anymore. He’s slipped back behind that mask of aloof nonchalance and she fucking _hates_ it. She hates seeing the emptiness in his eyes. Even violent, murderous outrage would be better.

 _“Well,”_ she queries insistently, taking a step forward, unable to maintain that same infuriating level of composure. She realizes she _wants_ him unhinged, wants to know she’s accomplished _something_. “Aren’t you _pissed!?_ Aren’t yo-”

“Oh,” he interrupts her as he flicks the butt away, taking his own step forward, insinuating himself into her space, “I’m _fucking furious-”_

She doesn’t know what drives her; she hears the cruel lilt come back into his voice, sees the cutting edge come back into his gaze, but something’s different this time. Something’s changed, something’s _charged up_ between them and suddenly they’re both lunging forward and their teeth click against each other as their mouths meet hard enough to bruise and their hands grope for purchase on whatever flesh or fabric they can find.

He grasps her arms, spins her and pins her against a stack of crates decorated with Eden’s cross, tongue sliding dangerously across her teeth, and she has to fight the urge to _bite._

She has absolutely no clue how it’s come to this _again_.

He could kill her. She’s vulnerable like this, _far_ too fucking vulnerable, and yet she finds herself _grasping for his belt,_ hooking fingertips over it to yank him closer. Unable to stifle a desperate whine as his thigh maneuvers itself between her legs, spreading them apart with dangerous ease.

It’s like a charge, like being hooked up to a car battery and jolted back to something like actual life. Everything else pales in comparison to the danger she knows she’s in at this very moment. The constant threat of death, dismemberment, mental ruination, it all leeches away under the sheer force of whatever is happening between them.

But he is vulnerable too, is he not?

She could have bitten his tongue off by now, and she hasn’t. This is a Faustian pact they are _both_ signing. A dangerous game where ruination and reward are intimately intertwined with each other.

She presses her palms against his chest and pushes him back, hard.

John stumbles, panting, reaching up to smooth back the hair mussed out of its normally slick appearance. _“Deputy-”_

“Shut the fuck up,” she mutters, low and raspy, chasing the step she forced him to take back, pushing him up against the side of the house.

His mouth widens into a smirk when his shoulders hit the siding and he has to stifle a triumphant little chuckle. “You are just _racking up_ transgressions, aren’t you, my dear?”

He hisses through his teeth when she rips open his shirt even more than it already is, latching her mouth onto the curve of his shoulder and biting him for his words.

She drags her teeth away after a moment, lips brushing his skin as she mutters a single question. “You tellin’ me to stop?”

 _“Fuck no,”_ he grunts, threading a hand up into her dark hair, wrapping it in his fist and pulling her head back so that he can lean down and kiss her again.

It’s punishing; everything they do is rough, spring-loaded with some unnatural type of aggression. She thought she’d had a hate-fuck before, but it never came close to whatever this is.

Diana yanks his shirt open the rest of the way, drags her fingers greedily down over the key that hangs from his neck, paying it no mind whatsoever. Her hands crave other things, like the planes of his scarred and tattooed abdomen and the modest growth of hair that starts just above his belt line.

She’d bet money he fucking manscapes it, but right now that hardly matters.

She starts fumbling with his belt and he actually groans before he snatches her arm up in a vice-like grip, dragging her across the porch and back in through the front door, throwing her down right over the back of the couch.

John walks around, undoing his belt, swaggering and admiring her before he impulsively kicks the coffee table over and out of his way.

Her eyes flick to it for only a moment before they are drawn back to him. He looms down over her, shirt and belt hanging, looking disheveled and so stupidly _fuckable_ it almost makes her blush.

“God, I’d love to know how many commandments you must be breaking right now,” she says as she hastily kicks her boots from her feet, struggling to undo the zipper on her pants.

 _“Several,”_ he purrs, surprisingly unperturbed by her question. He reaches out and pushes her down against the cushions, hooks fingertips over the waistband of those hideous camo pants and sweeps them from her legs, unreasonably glad to be rid of them.

She thinks about slinging out some cutting jab about his brother and how disappointed the Father would _surely_ be, but for some reason she doesn’t. She is highly aware that a comment like that could ruin whatever sick, ironic catharsis they might be approaching, and she simply cannot bring herself to do that.

It seems appropriate. All she’s ever really been good at is finding ways to fuck her life up, especially when it seems like things are taking a turn for the better.

Why not sleep with the enemy? Why not damn herself _irrevocably,_ once and for all? _Why not,_ when the smell of his cologne makes her arch forward with a pathetic whimper and the feel of his hands on her, rough even with intentions other than drawing out pain, makes her draw her thighs together, far too desperate for her own good.

She’d be horrified if she wasn’t so turned on. She can’t waste time trying to sort through her feelings anyway, not when John’s palm is sliding down the plane of her leg and forcing it to the side to allow him entry. He plants himself on a knee and hovers down over her, eyes clouded with a potent mixture of lust and violence.

“You are filthy...but _I will cleanse you,”_ he mutters almost reverently. “All you have to say is _yes-”_

She swallows the end of his favorite word when she grasps at the collar of his shirt and pulls him back into another kiss just to shut him up. She won’t be saying yes. That’s a trap she can’t let herself fall into. But there are other ways to give consent to what’s currently amping up between them.

She reaches down and grabs his hand and slides it between her legs.

John exhales a shuddering breath when he finds the state she’s in, thinks about whether he should press the issue for approximately _two seconds_ before promptly banishing it from his mind. She may not be saying yes to the Project, but she is saying yes to _him,_ and for right now that will do _just fine._

She _will_ be his.

He will have her body first.

And then he will have her soul.

His fingers slip under the hem of her panties, yanking them to the side before sliding through the slick she’s cultivated. He can’t help hissing between his teeth, fixing her with a mirthless grin. It was never like this with Holly. Never this desperate, never charged with so much heady, unresolved animosity.

She’d stopped coming around shortly after the incident with Mary May and Will Boyd, anyway, but that was fine.

It’s all fine now. Holly slips from his mind like water through a sieve, gone and forgotten.

Joseph was wrong. Well, _partly._

Diana isn’t meant for any of the other heralds, _can’t_ be meant for death despite his brother’s insinuation that she be neutralized in any way possible.

Joseph’s very first declaration had been to _him,_ and lo and behold, _he_ was the one she’d come back to; never mind the fact that he’d purposely emptied her safe house of all its former inhabitants. She would have come back anyway. It was inevitable.

He slides two of his fingers inside her without any forewarning, dexterous as he is impatient, and a swell of cruel triumph rises up in him at the way she gasps through her own teeth and arches toward him.

He doesn’t know why he feels the need to say it. “Diana...you are quickly approaching something that _cannot_ be reneged upon,” he breathes against her neck as he thrusts his fingers, pressing into her and delighting at her submission. “I don’t think you fully comprehend what you’re doing.”

 _“I know exactly what I’m doing,”_ she hisses defiantly and reaches down to palm him firmly through his jeans. He still hasn’t removed them and she finds that combined with his pompous tone _wildly_ irritating.

He huffs out a frustrated breath against her collar and leans back up on his knee, removing his hand from her and reaching down to fumble with his zipper. He puts in just enough work to remove himself from the confines of his jeans before lunging down again, bruising her lips with another kiss before biting on her bottom lip and pulling greedily with his teeth.

He takes just a moment to reach down and get himself where he needs to be and then slams inside her as deep as he can go, clamping his hands around the bottom of her thighs and pulling her up and against him, seeking the very core of her as if he can drive her demons out with his very own body.

Her mouth falls open. She lets her eyes roll at the sudden sensation of having him _there._ It’s almost shameful there had been no resistance whatsoever.

“Oh, _fuck,”_ she gasps, rolling her hips up against his shamelessly in animalistic response.

“Indeed,” he mutters with an outrush of breath, planting one foot on the floor to steady himself. He wastes no time, not fucking her especially fast, but with a punctuation of rough, deep-set strokes. His fingers press so hard into her skin she knows there will be bruises.

“If I had known it would be this easy to bring you to heel, I would have taken you to _dinner_ before trying to coax a confession out of you,” he growls, blue eyes sparkling demonically in the low light. He removes a hand from her thigh to smooth his palm up under the hem of her shirt, sliding up her abdomen to rest between her breasts, flush against her sternum, pressing there almost possessively.

Diana bares her teeth at him, curling her arm up behind her head and planting her palm against the couch’s armrest so that she can lever herself to meet his movements; a counterbalance of sorts. He must never be allowed to have _all_ the power.

 _“I simply adore how fucking romantic you are,”_ she pants, lips curling into a grimace.

John sneers and pulls his hand from beneath her shirt. He leans in close and snakes it back up, wraps it firmly around her throat, never breaking eye contact. “Make no mistake, deputy,” he groans between little pants of breath, punctuating his words with sharp rolls of his hips, “this, right now, what’s coming to pass between us—it’s part of the plan— _I know it is._ You were always meant to be _mine.”_

Diana’s eyes widen a fraction as the fear races up through her like a streak of lightning. This is not the first time his hand has been on her throat, but it is...different. Accompanied by his twisted assurance, she suddenly isn’t afraid that he’s going to kill her anymore. No, her dread is existential now instead of physical.

This isn’t how hate sex is supposed to go.

She isn’t supposed to feel some traitorous, grim and dirty pleasure.

She can’t tear her gaze away from his too-handsome face and his hooded eyes, still far too sharp, seeing too much as he moves inside her.

She wants to hurl some cutting, defiant remark back at him. All she manages instead is a broken moan when he pulls back just enough to lift one of her thighs, his palm smoothing up along the curve of her leg to prop her calf upon his shoulder, somehow managing to insinuate himself even deeper all while he proceeds to dig his fingers into the flesh there.

“Yess...” he pants through bared teeth, grinning mercilessly, watching her eyelids flutter and her brow furrow and her eyes rolling back. “You know it’s true, don’t you? I will _break you apart,_ piece by piece,” he mutters slow, coming back in close and bending her leg to a point bordering on painful, continuing with sharp strokes of his hips though his rhythm is faltering.

“And then I will put you back together. I will make you whole with pieces of _myself,”_ he breathes against her lips before crushing them with his own, drinking up her ragged breath and delighting in the conflict he can surely see in her eyes.

Diana quakes with mutinously twitching muscles beneath him, the fingernails of one hand embedded into his shoulder hard enough to break the skin. They will leave little moon shapes behind long after this is over, a callback to what feels like a midnight dance with the devil. A Faustian pact, indeed.

It’s almost enough to bring her to tears.

He lowers his forehead and squeezes his eyes shut briefly, shuddering with an onrush of pleasure as he feels her tighten and flutter around him. “And we will walk through the Gates _together.”_

She can’t help crying out when his forehead meets hers, the duality in his words and his actions and his intentions overwhelming. He is still thoroughly fucking her, and she can’t stop herself from coming unraveled around him, around the sheer stupid force of him and his fucked up beliefs and the power they somehow hold.

John shudders as another sharp spike of pleasure radiates through him; combined with the knowledge that he has irrevocably claimed her, it only serves to fuel his conviction. She did this willingly, knowing full well the implications. They’ve come together in some liminal space, some no man’s land. Their demons are dancing in a burning room, laughing hot fire into each other’s mouths with razor teeth and tongues full of sins.

He is reduced to half-uttered groans, all the grandiloquent words and phrases finally fleeing. He is left with nothing but faith and feeling, so strong, so _sure_ in such a way he has not been in years.

His grip on her throat loosens minutely before he squeezes and then finally releases her with a shuddering gasp, reaching up to grab her chin instead. He holds her firm, rubs his thumb roughly over her lips before forcibly inserting it into her mouth, grinning almost madly when she bites down, waiting to see what she’ll do.

Diana inhales sharply before closing her lips and sucking, fixing him with a defiant stare as he slots his hips against her so that he can spill himself deep inside.

He puffs out a small, breathless, triumphant little laugh. Removes his thumb from her mouth, dragging a trail of saliva down her chin.

Diana finally moves the hand from his shoulder, her fingers aching. She attempts to catch her breath, but it’s hard to do when the euphoria is fading and actual, rational thought starts creeping back in.

Her first thought is to thank liberal America for the fact that she’s got an IUD.

Her second thought is that she is officially, irrevocably in this _way too fucking deep._

He was right. She has done something she can _never_ reverse. If _anyone_ finds out about this…

 _“Fuck,”_ she mutters, flattening her palms against his shoulders and pushing him, flailing her legs to scramble out from underneath where he’s pinned her. She flops down onto the bearskin rug very ungracefully and grimaces, lunging to her feet and taking a few steps back from the couch, almost tripping over the upturned coffee table.

John balances on the couch on one knee for a moment, takes his time standing. He is far too leisurely, sated and gloating. He tucks himself back into his jeans. Looks up at her when he starts buttoning his shirt back up, a smug and infuriating smirk turning up one corner of his mouth. “Don’t be a _child,_ Diana. It’s far too late for you to feel any indignance.”

She snatches her pants up off the floor, glancing over at him with wild eyes as she starts clumsily pulling them on.

 _“I am not yours,”_ she mutters almost frantically _, “I’m not anyone’s.”_ She straightens and tugs the waistband up over her hips, fumbling with zipper and buttons. “Look—this was fun or _whatever-”_

John’s eyes darken and he takes a step toward her. “Oh, it was much more than that. It was _poetic._ It was _exactly what was supposed to happen.”_

“No.”

 _“Yes,”_ he hisses. “Stay with me. Confess. Let me _help_ you.”

She shakes her head, huffs out a strangled laugh at the sheer fucking absurdity of this entire situation, sweeping past him to get to her boots. _“No.”_

“Deputy!” He rounds on her, voice raising.

She yanks one boot on and pauses, half-bent to the floor, looking up at him. “Are you going to free your _fucking_ hostages!?”

He wets his lips, smirks, reaches up to wipe a hand down over his mouth. Looks like he’s seriously considering it for just a moment.

 _“No,”_ he finally says.

“Okay then.” She pulls on her other boot and straightens up, starts backing away from him towards the door. “Absolutely nothing has changed.”

 _“Diana,”_ he calls again, using a disciplinary tone that strikes a lance of ire through her, forces her full attention. “I think you’ll find that _everything_ has changed.”

She flashes him a faint, defiant smile as she backs out through the threshold, out into the cool night air. She can feel his spend leaking from her and has to swallow down the urge to vomit. “See you around, John. I’ll be coming for those people.”

He shows a wide, knowing smile, sharp as a knife as he watches her disappear back into the night.


	17. The Truth Won't Set Us Free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our friends, they are not fooled
> 
> By the lies that we've been telling
> 
> In their eyes I see the sympathy
> 
> But there's no reason to confide
> 
> We're not buying what they're selling
> 
> Cause the truth won't set us free
> 
> -Sara Watkins, The Truth Won’t Set Us Free

Diana looks up as the front door opens. She exhales a heavy breath and tries her damnedest not to look as fucked up as she feels. She unhooks her arms from where they’d been crossed tightly, forces them down to her sides.

“Hey, partner! We were startin’ to worry when we didn’t hear from you,” Nick says, the relief in his voice surprising her. He quickly steps aside and allows her entry.

“Thanks. And, uh...sorry,” Diana replies quietly as she steps into his home. “Thought it’d be safer to stay quiet.”

She hears a commotion from the kitchen and looks up to see Adelaide and Jess standing, pushing their chairs back from where they’d been seated at the kitchen table with a _very_ pregnant woman that can only be Kim.

“How’d it go,” Jess asks as she passes into the living room, eyeing Diana up and down. “Did you find anything?”

Diana can’t help shrinking a bit from the hunter’s keen stare. She shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head. “I—no. No, all I found was some _letter_ he’d written to Joseph. Nothing in there we didn’t already know. Rest of the place was locked up tight,” she lies through her teeth.

Jess frowns, glancing over at Nick before Addie and Kim come out to fill the small living room.

Kim makes her way over to Diana, getting her first good look at the hero of Hope County.

Diana nods, extending a hand out to greet Nick’s wife and is surprised when she gets pulled into a tight hug instead. She tries to be careful of the massive baby bump, blinks hard and fast a few times to stop the mutinous tears starting to form in her eyes.

She doesn’t deserve this. Their appreciation. Their thanks.

“Thank you for all your help, Deputy. You don’t know what it means to have that plane back.”

Diana shakes her head and finally pushes Kim away to arm’s length, gently as she can. “No, these two are the ones that got her back safe and sound,” she replies, nodding her chin up toward Jess and Adelaide. “Anyway, the important thing is _you two_ can get out of here. You should get your things together, leave as soon as the sun comes up. Get the _fuck_ out of this place...”

Kim’s brow furrows and she glances over at Nick.

“Uh, yeah...about that,” Nick replies, pushing up his baseball cap to scratch underneath, “looks like the Ryes are diggin’ in, actually.”

 _“What?”_ Diana whips her head around, fixing him with an incredulous look. 

“This place is our _home,”_ Kim cuts in from beside her. “It’s been in his family for generations. We can’t let them take it from us. We can’t let them win.”

Diana rounds on Kim again, huffing out a breath through her nose.

“And listen—we owe you, _big time,_ okay? You _ever_ need air support, you give me a holler,” Nick asserts with a firm pat on Diana’s shoulder as he steps past her to put an arm around his wife.

Diana looks back and forth between them, can’t help an exasperated sigh. “I…” Her eyes move down to Kim’s stomach. “Are you _sure?”_

“Sure as shit, partner,” Nick replies while Kim nods and shows a defiant smile from beside him.

“Speakin’ of gettin’ out of dodge,” Adelaide cuts in, sauntering over to the group, “John is gonna be _pissed_ when he finds out about this. Now, I gotta get back to the marina and check in on Xander - poor darlin’ idiot doesn’t do well when he’s left on his own - and I suggest you come with, sugar. Get outta the valley before he can swoop in and have his way with you.”

Diana’s gaze flicks to Adelaide a little too quickly, a lance of shame threatening to choke her up, paralyze her. She doesn’t care that it’s the Henbane, that the Bliss _fucks her up_ every time she’s exposed to it. She _does_ need to get out of here, get away from him and the toxic gravity that’s drawn them together, bound them up in some unholy mockery of passion.

Diana nods curtly, clears her throat from the poisonous lump that’s formed there. “Yeah. I’m ready when you are.”

. . . 

They fly the hell out of the valley shortly after, regroup with the others at some old pizza joint just across the river called the 8-Bit. Fall’s End is no longer safe, and Adelaide had suggested the place as a temporary alternative, as she’d been trying to sell the property before the cult put the whole county on lock-down. It seems safe enough for the time being, and fairly inconspicuous to boot as long as they stay quiet and keep their comings and goings well coordinated.

Sharky and Hurk are both fussing over the arcade machine in the corner when the women roll in. Grace sits perched on a stool behind the bar, sniper rifle half-disassembled, cleaning its components meticulously.

They all look up when the door opens; Diana had radioed in advance, but the uproar of a helicopter flying in somewhere close by is a hard thing to miss.

“Hey hey, shorties,” Sharky pipes up, attempting to liven the mood as he makes his way over and holds out a fist for Diana and Jess to both bump. “Super glad to see y’all back in one piece. D’you burn down John Seed’s fuckin’ party palace or what?” He waggles his eyebrows, insinuating how proud he would be if that were, in fact, the case.

Diana scoffs and shakes her head, and when she bumps his fist in return, it’s lackluster at best. _“No,_ I didn’t burn it down. _Though I probably fuckin’ should have,”_ she remarks bitterly as she makes her way past him and over to the bar.

Jess gives Sharky a more hearty bump, raising her eyebrows when he turns his gaze to her and seems to ask a silent question. _What the hell happened?_

The hunter just shakes her head and shrugs. “Guess there was nothin’ there - except Nick’s plane - but after we took it we did toast the _fuck_ out of that stupid sign up on the mountain.”

Sharky grins at the hunter, snapping his fingers and doing a quick little jig. _“Hell yeah!_ That’s what I’m fuckin’ talkin’ about!”

Grace looks up at Diana as the deputy takes a seat across the bar, setting down the disassembled pieces of her rifle. “So–what happened?”

Diana heaves out a sigh. “Nothing. Place was all locked up. No baptist _or_ hostages in sight. There any beer left in this place?” she asks a little sulkily.

Grace gives her a withering look, but finally she spins on her stool and leans down to peer into one of the coolers. “I guess there’s a few,” she replies, sliding from her perch to retrieve them.

Diana gives her a thankful nod as Grace places a bottle in front of her. She pops the top with her lighter and takes a long sip.

“Well...what do we do now,” the sniper asks with a sigh as she grabs a bottle opener from behind the bar to pop the other beer open for herself.

Hurk slides in around the bar beside Grace, going to rummage in the cooler for three more beers. “Couple of _cervezas_ sound like a good place to start.”

Diana sighs, leaning down over the bar top on her elbows and rubbing her tired eyes with one hand. “I don’t know. Addie took off back to the marina. I think I should get back to the jail tomorrow, check in with the sheriff...”

“What about everybody back in the valley,” Sharky asks a little cautiously as he takes one of the bottles from Hurk, settling himself against the bar with an easy lean.

“I…” Diana’s mouth moves like she _wants_ to try and materialize some clever scheme. Finally she looks down at the beer in her hand, shaking her head.

“I don’t know,” she utters miserably.

“Hey,” Grace says, leaning over and squeezing Diana’s forearm. “We’ll figure it out. Maybe Tracey and Whitehorse will have some ideas, yeah?”

“Anybody talked to Dutch?” Jess asks from Diana’s other side, glancing around the small group.

No one has.

They radio the old prepper almost immediately, only to be greeted by a raspy and thorough chuckle in response to the devastation done to John’s YES sign. Dutch says they’ve surely pissed in the youngest Seed’s cornflakes now, but getting access to his bunker is _only_ possible via the aid of a key he keeps safely around his neck.

Diana freezes.

A memory replays itself, unbidden. Tearing open his shirt, _tasting his skin;_ running her fingers down over the leather cord, the key itself warm from resting so near his heart, practically a part of him.

She’d had her hands on it.

And she _hadn’t even realized._

Diana swallows thickly, the rest of whatever Dutch and the others say falling away like echoes in some endless hallway, muffled and hollow. Fumbling in her jacket pocket, she produces her cigarettes and waves them in the air, silently indicating that she’s leaving the old restaurant for a smoke break.

Before anyone can say anything, she’s ducked from the group, shouldering her way out the door and around the corner of the building.

She tries to stop herself from breathing too fast. Her hand shakes when she plucks a cigarette from the pack, raises the lighter. She leans back against the wall and squeezes her eyes shut, as if she could ever hope to block the memories from her mind’s eye.

It’s already been hell walking around with the weight of what she’s done, lying to the people closest to her, but to know now that she was _that goddamn close_ to actually doing something right…

It should have been obvious.

_Would she have tried to take it even if she had known its significance?_

She has to cover her mouth with her hand to muffle the sob that forces its way up and out of her.

This is the thought that paralyzes Diana with some kind of existential terror the likes of which she doesn’t remember ever experiencing. She’d been fucking hypnotized by what can only be described as the aura John emanates; lost herself in that limbo of hatred-turned-something-else that permeates the air between them whenever they meet each other.

And the things he’d _said?_ The way he’d sounded so fucking sure when he told her in no uncertain terms that _she was his_ while his cock was buried inside her and his hand was wrapped around her throat and his thumb was jammed into her fucking mouth?

She shivers uncontrollably, takes a shaky drag from her cigarette.

 _“Fuck!”_ She spins and punches her fist straight into the side of the building, gasps and hisses, clenching her teeth and quickly shaking out her stinging knuckles.

 _“Goddamnit, Lili, I wish you were fucking here right now,”_ she mutters in a rush of breath, smacking her forehead against the 8-Bit’s weathered siding.

“Uh, who’s that?”

Diana jumps and startles away from the building, looking over to see Jess approaching. She’s moving slow, like Diana’s a wild animal—and right now, she certainly feels like one.

“Sorry. You just took off real fuckin’ quick back there.” Jess looks at the ground for a few moments, her brows knitting. “I just...are you okay?”

Diana chews the inside of her lip furiously and finally lets out a ragged sigh. “I...no. I’m pretty _fucking_ terrified, actually,” she mutters as she reaches up to run her hand anxiously through her dark tangled hair, pulling where it’s snarled.

Jess looks up at her, worrying her hands at her sides before taking another step closer.

“Um...Lili—Liliana, was...a girl I used to know. She’s dead now.”

Jess purses her lips. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Yeah, me too.” Diana closes her eyes briefly, takes a drag of the cigarette and fidgets for a few moments before settling her shoulders back against the building. She feels like she can’t hold her own weight. It’s crushing. “She was the best person I ever met,” she mutters, looking down at her boots.

Jess takes another step over, shoves her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt. “You...wanna talk about it?”

Diana glances over sideways, can’t help scoffing even though she knows Jess is only trying to offer support. But this wound is still tender, even almost thirteen years later. “Just hard to think about...about what things might’ve been like if she was still alive. She was, like, the _only good thing_ I-” she cuts herself off before she starts crying, reaching up to swipe at her nose and looking away almost shamefully.

Jess frowns. And suddenly she’s up in Diana’s space, prying her away from the wall to wrap her up in a hug whether the deputy wants it or not. “My parents were good people, too. The fuckin’ _best_. And it hurts me _every single day_ thinking about what the Peggies fuckin’ did to them.”

Diana feels defensiveness boiling up inside her and has to bite it back.

“And it’s cool if you’re scared, you know? I mean - fuck - I don’t mean it _is_ cool, just, like…” Jess huffs out a sigh, stumbling over her own words. “I mean we’re _all_ fuckin’ scared. It ain’t just you feeling that way.”

Diana can’t help grimacing, glad that she’s still wrapped up in the younger woman’s arms so that Jess can’t see the pain that must be plainly visible on her face.

She has no idea what Diana is _actually_ scared of. Can’t even begin to fathom the depth of the self-loathing Diana feels at this very moment, being comforted by a friend that she’s betrayed.

That’s what it is, after all; a betrayal. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. The more she fixates on it, the more she realizes it was not just another one night stand she can simply walk away from. There are strings attached. Strings _he_ put there, hooked into her with needles and barbs and sewed tight into the marrow of her fucking bones.

“We just gotta stick together. Especially now. We’re gonna figure this shit out, okay?”

Diana had begged to use the Ryes’ shower before the three of them left the valley, but her skin still crawls with the memories - the imprints of himself he’d left all over her - despite how she’d scoured herself under water turned up hot enough to burn. The look in his eyes; certainly mad, most definitely bordering on possessive, _ob_ sessive even-

“Di?”

She snaps back to the present, looks up as Jess pulls back and holds her at arm’s length. “I...sorry,” she replies hastily, shaking her head and sniffling just a little. “I just—I really need to get some sleep, okay?”

She loosens herself from Jess’s grasp before the hunter can respond, taking a few steps back and folding her arms. “Thanks, though. For everything...”

Jess lets her hands fall back to her sides, turning to watch with a troubled expression as Diana starts back for the door. “Yeah, uh...no problem.”

. . .

Diana shows up at the Hope County Jail the next day with Hurk and Sharky in tow. She hasn’t forgotten about that goddamn statue looming over the Henbane, and the jail seems like the best place to start their search for some high-powered explosive ammunition. It’s also proven a convenient excuse to send Grace and Jess off in another direction, scouting out Bliss fields the boys can burn once they’re done here.

Diana admittedly feels a deeper attachment to the other women, so therefore they _had_ to be sent away. She feels like she can’t even look either of them in the eye, knows her own evasiveness is going to lead to a reckoning at some point. But for today, this is the best she’s got.

She’s also sporting a major headache thanks to being back on the ground in Faith’s territory, surrounded by traces of Bliss pollen even when there are no fields of the shit in sight. She’s been queasy since they left the 8-Bit, fighting to keep down the meager breakfast she’d had after finally rolling out of her sleeping bag around noon.

Needless to say, she isn’t in the best of moods when Virgil Minkler cuts her off and confronts her about the Cougars’ missing resident doctor. A veterinarian, actually, but beggars can’t exactly be choosers at the moment. The Resistance will take any medical expertise they can get.

Diana finally manages to escape him with her assurance that she will add finding Dr. Lindsey to her ever-growing list. She charges Hurk and Sharky with going to talk to the de facto supply master about procuring some explosives and makes her way further into the jail alone, searching out Whitehorse.

She finds him downstairs in the cell block-turned-common area, poring over a map of Hope County with a few other resistance members.

“Rook,” he mutters with a smile nearly hidden by his bushy mustache as he looks up at the sound of footfalls on the stairs. “Glad to see you back in one piece.”

. . .

The Geothermal Park is not a long trek north from the jail, but Diana regrets the trip almost as soon as they’ve left.

She’s started hearing whispering, thinking she’s seeing things out of the corners of her eyes. They drive past a few people meandering slowly down the side of the road, looking for all the world as if they’re asleep on their feet.

“Should we stop?”

Sharky glances up into the rear view, shaking his head vehemently at the deputy’s question. “Hell, no. Sorry, chica—I’d like to do somethin’ for those people, but they are _toast._ Already Blissed out of their fuckin’ gourds. _Makin’ the Pilgrimage_. Best to...just put ‘em outta their misery, send ‘em off to disco heaven—or try and ignore ‘em, I guess.”

Diana furrows her brows, turning in the backseat to watch the shambling figure as it recedes behind them, soon eclipsed by the dust kicked up from their passing. Even that small motion sets her head reeling. She takes a few deep breaths, facing forward once more and settling back against the seat

“What did old Whitehorse have to say, anyway? You tell him about what happened back in the valley?” Sharky asks, glancing back at her through the rear view.

Diana chews her lip, straightening herself up somewhat. “Yeah, I did. They don’t exactly have people to spare, though. Angels have been swarming the jail almost every day for a week now. He needs all hands on deck...”

“Well...no high-powered explosives at the jail either, but we _did_ manage to get a juicy lead that you are just gonna _love, amigo.”_

Diana frowns. She already knows she is _not_ going to love whatever Hurk is about to say.

“Old Jake ‘n Bake’s armory up at the dam,” Sharky butts in almost giddily - his scratchy voice going up an octave - before Hurk gets the chance to say it. He immediately shoots his cousin a shit-eating grin at the dirty look he gets.

Diana blinks. “Oh, _fuck no._ There’s gotta be somewhere else we can look.”

“Yeah, that’s about what we said, too. That’s the one and only suggestion they was kind enough to give us, though,” Hurk replies a little bitterly.

It’s clear they feel the same way she does; Sharky’s treating it like a hilarious joke, and Hurk just seems reticent about the very idea of going toe-to-toe with the oldest Seed sibling. And for good reason; he’s an ex-soldier, squeezing the mountains with an iron fist, draining the Resistance of people and resources daily. He is an expert. And he is ruthless. And they all know how tightly controlled access to his bunker must surely be.

“Can’t you two just get some fertilizer and dynamite and, like... _make_ something?”

The cousins glance at each other again and mirror themselves, both angling their heads.

“Well of _course_ we could mix somethin’ up, we’d just need, like...a metric fuck-ton of it. Approximately,” Sharky replies, reaching up to scrub one hand down over his goatee. He looks thoughtful though, like maybe there’s an idea forming in that gasoline-addled head of his.

“Yo, that’s an idea though, cuz - we could hit up Green-Busch, maybe one of them old abandoned mines - stock up on enough shit to _riddle_ that statue right full of pop-sauce.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, Hurky, but settin’ that shit up takes time. How the fuck are we gonna rig that whole statue without the Peggies catchin’ wind?”

“Create a distraction. How much time do you think you’d need to do it?” Diana queries from the backseat.

Sharky looks thoughtful for a few moments, doing some math in his head. “Probably a couple hours at least.”

“Hey, park’s comin’ up hot here on the left,” Hurk points out with a nod of his head, readjusting the RAT-4 he’s got nestled between his legs.

“Okay. Let’s table it. Green-Busch is back in the valley anyway, right? That big ugly-ass ode to Joseph’s ego isn’t the one _actively kidnapping_ people, so...just keep it on the back burner for now,” Diana muses as she snatches up the rifle she’s got stashed on the seat beside her.

Sharky turns their stolen sedan off the road, slowing to a crawl as they approach a dirt parking lot with signs pointing out the trails that lead into the geothermal springs.

He stops the car in the treeline with the intention of keeping it somewhat hidden from any wandering eyes and they all pile out, taking a few minutes to check their weapons and ammo.

Sharky starts leading them down one of the dirt paths, his shotgun held close to his chest. “So, uh...what the fuck is this guy doin’ out here, anyway,” he asks no one in particular.

“No fuckin’ clue,, except this was the last place he was seen-” Diana stops talking suddenly, stops walking as well.

_“You must be dizzy. So many roads to choose. What to believe, who to help first? What to trust?”_

She blinks, spinning on her heels and bringing her rifle up, scanning the trees around them. She knows that voice.

“Uhh, everything copacetic there, Double-D?” Hurk asks, slowing his stride and turning to look back at the deputy.

Sharky snickers. “Double-D? When the _hell_ did you come up with that-”

_“When you find the path—you’ll see clearly.”_

“Shit, Sharky, I ain’t mean it like that—it’s short for _Deputy Diana,_ dip _shit-”_

Diana spins again, feels her blood rushing in her ears, eyes roaming wildly past her two companions. _“Shhh, shut up_ —you don’t hear that?”

They both blink owlishly, glancing at each other before looking over at her.

“Uh...hear what?” Sharky shifts on his feet, glancing around and behind quickly.

 _“That voice!?_ You don’t hear it?” Diana looks between the two of them, sweat starting to spring up on the back of her neck.

The cousins both shake their heads, and the three of them stand there in utter silence for almost a full minute before Diana finally heaves out a frustrated sigh and lets her rifle drop to her side.

 _“Fuck me,”_ she mutters hoarsely, bowing her head and raising a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. “I swear to God it sounded like _Faith…”_

“Hey, best thing we can do is keep movin’, dep,” Sharky says with an air like he’s trying for reassurance. “We all know Faith’s got some real spooky shit goin’ on out here. Even though her voice _is_ real nice...like, I’m not sayin’ I wish I was hearin’ it or nothin’, just, uh…you know. She’s just got that real soothing kind of a voice, is all…”

Hurk makes a face and smacks Sharky on the arm, muscling past him to continue on down the trail. “Just stick close to your pal Hurk Jr., Double-D! Sharky may have lost you once before, but that ain’t gonna happen on my watch! If I’m gonna be startin’ Hurk’s Gate, I gotta look after all my followers!”

Diana scans the trees once more before giving the two men out ahead of her an anxious sidelong glare. She doesn’t like this, doesn’t know what they’re about to walk into; likes being the only one hearing voices even _less._

She tries to steel herself. Brings her rifle back up, close against her chest, and jogs along behind them to catch up.


	18. Oh The Bliss II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is a special chapter because it actually features my friend followthefreedomtrail's amazing Fallout 4 OC Nora Adler and her son Shaun! If you’re into Fallout (or Paladin Danse) please please go check out her series All Roads Lead To You because (I don’t even like Danse but she made me soft for him) Char is such a fantastic writer and her stories deserve all the love!!!!
> 
> Anyways. 
> 
> . . . . .
> 
> Oh the Bliss will set you free
> 
> Oh the Bliss is gonna make you see 
> 
> -The Hope County Choir, Oh The Bliss

Diana does not stick close.

She gets separated from Hurk and Sharky after they briefly think they’ve managed to rescue Dr. Lindsey and a few other people the Peggies were holding hostage. A second troop of cultists surrounds the geothermal springs as soon as they’re trying to make preparations to leave, almost like they’d just been _waiting_ to spring a goddamn trap on the deputy and her friends.

And of all the dirty fucking traps, the _illusion_ of a hostage is the one that gets her.

Just as Diana comes skidding up to the woman, close enough to see the fucking _tears_ streaming down her cheeks, dodging bullets the whole way, she disappears in a sickly green cloud of fog and Bliss powder.

And Diana inhales before she even realizes what she’s doing.

She distantly feels the ground coming up to meet her; isn’t sure, but she might be calling out for Hurk and Sharky. For help. For _anyone_ but the familiar figure she meets when her vision finally comes back.

_“Welcome to the Bliss,”_ Faith says sweetly, with a little giggle, before blowing another handful of that fucking powder straight into Diana’s face.

She doesn’t know if she ever truly falls unconscious. There are colors and shadows and sounds and voices all around her, none of it coherent.

_“You’ve been invited into our home...into our heart. Trust in the Path and you’ll find the answers you seek.”_

She’s back in that effervescent place, lush grass beneath her feet, fog drifting past in a breeze so gentle she can’t even feel it. She can’t feel much of anything, though, to be honest.

Directly in front of her a tree stands in the distance, oddly lopsided with the verdant growth decorating its branches. She starts forward, bidden by some compulsion she can’t explain. Rabbits dart through the grass in front of her feet, leaving little afterimages in their wake.

She is reminded suddenly, distantly, of the first time she’d smoked opium when she was eighteen. Not even a year outside of Cascade County - barely longer than that since Liliana’d been stabbed by a mugger and left for dead in some dingy alleyway, and _God,_ that should fucking _hurt,_ thinking about that, but for some reason it doesn’t - and one of Diana’s friends had gotten his hands on the stuff from a friend of another friend.

_Friend_ is a term used loosely—they were more like party acquaintances, drawn together whenever someone needed a fix or wanted a buddy for a trip. This feels a lot like that did. Weightless, painless, unhindered by worry. It was easy to see why people got hooked on the stuff and its derivatives, and she’d never touched the shit again after that first time.

She can only wish she had that much of a choice when it comes to the Bliss.

Faith reappears, twirling through the grass, afterimages echoing in her passing before she blinks out of sight in a flicker of fog. Diana tracks the movement only sluggishly, feels herself getting pulled to turn around, watches the ghostly woman shimmer back into existence on her other side.

“Even those who fight against us seek salvation,” Faith says as she drifts closer, little songbirds dancing through the air around her. She flickers and blinks out again, displacing the fog around where she’d just been.

“You’re proof of that,” comes from behind Diana and she spins around once more and Faith is right there in front of her, reaching out to grasp the deputy’s hands and pull her toward where Joseph stands amongst a little group of Peggies all seated in the grass. “We _all_ need guidance in times like these.”

Diana catches motion out of the corner of her eye and can’t help glancing away from the pastoral scene laid before her. It’s never easy to tell what’s a trick here - _everything_ is a trick, really - but it seems like there’s something prowling out there beyond the path, beyond the bounds of the fog.

A chill of unease runs through her, but her attention is drawn back when Faith leans in and whispers.

_“Now you’ll see. Now you’ll truly understand…”_

“Those on the outside will see what we have built here together, in our New Eden. The _love,”_ Joseph preaches to his little flock, but he turns his head and looks directly at Diana with those eyes that send her hackles straight up and goosebumps racing across her skin. “And they will come. And they will try to take from us all that we have built.”

He approaches slowly, holds his hands out in that fatherly gesture he seems to be so fond of, even as he admonishes her and those she came here with. “You judge me. You judge _us;_ the things that we have done...”

He gets so close he fills almost the whole scope of her vision, touches her, holds her by her shoulders. “You know, people say...that I’m crazy.”

His voice lulls her, disarms her even more than she already has been. She doesn’t know why it seems so familiar until she realizes it’s the same exact tone that John takes whenever he feels like indulging in that deceptive tenderness he’s so wont to use like a weapon.

It would make sense. Even raised separately as they were, it’s almost like convergent evolution; some things, some traits, developed analogously on their own. John’s wielded gentleness selfishly, manipulatively, she knows this - knows a little of his past from Joseph’s very own book - but the Father himself she finds harder to pin down, harder to pick apart; especially as she’s been Blissed out of her mind two out of the three times they’ve come face to face.

“But when you wake up in the morning, you look at the same news I do. Do your eyes not fill with _horror?”_ he asks, turning away from her to look off into the distance, bidding her gaze to follow him.

She sees Faith and their small group of followers again when he finally moves out of the way. And horror rips through her at how the scene has changed while she’s been distracted; those people who’d been so happy, so intently rejoicing in Joseph’s words, lay _dead_ at Faith’s feet. That white lace is covered in huge splashes of crimson. Her smile is full of bloodstained teeth.

_“This is the world!? This!?”_

Diana blinks, shakes her head and turns to look back at Joseph and her jaw drops at what she sees. He stands there facing away from her, arms outstretched toward the sky, and those shadows she thought she’d seen before are wolves prowling in from beyond the fog, coming in to circle around him balefully.

_“This is the world we built for our children!?”_

A flash blinds her and she raises a hand to cover her eyes, squinting as a mushroom cloud blooms on the horizon behind him.

“Communities being torn apart!? Walls being erected? Because leaders are too impotent to act! Bullies are too addled to lead righteously,” he exhorts, extending his hand out to her once more, beckoning her forward.

She has no choice. She hears snarling and high-pitched growls all around her, and those wolves are literally snapping at her ankles to force her forward, back into his arms.

“I did not ask for this,” he says, pulling her close as the afterwind from the explosion decimates the trees along the path behind him, approaching at an alarming rate. “I was chosen…”

Diana opens her mouth to scream but no sound comes out, tries to pull away from him to run but she is stuck fast. The wolves are circling, _howling_ now, and the shock from the blast blows her hair back as Joseph keeps his hold on her.

“See, everything is coming to an end. You can feel that...I _know_ you can.”

Her hair whips around her face as the fallout overtakes them, bathing the world in sooty darkness, burning embers falling and sparking and popping all around.

She chances another quick glance to the side, at the wolves caught up in that unholy baying. Their fur is burning, melting away in the impossible heat from the blast.

“You came as a locust into _our garden_. A _serpent_. I knew you would. I knew I would have to fight to protect all that into which I have poured my blood and sweat. What I did _not_ anticipate was your causing me to have to turn watchful eyes upon _my own family,”_ Joseph practically hisses as the torrential wave of wind and searing heat envelops them. “You sow violence wherever you tread; I chose to lead because I _saw_ what was coming, and you dare stand before me, before my family, and have the audacity to tell us _we’re wrong!?”_

The heat evaporates her tears as soon as they’re shed, blurring her vision. It’s an odd feeling in that she can’t feel it, per se, but she knows what’s happening.

Joseph’s voice gets louder and louder even as she watches the skin starting to burn and flake from his bare torso. His tattoos peel and flutter away to get lost in the torrent of debris. But his hold on her is as strong as ever. “You, parading around like some _Lilith_ \- some demon - drawing my own brother back into the sin I have tried so hard to _purge from him!”_

Flesh peels from muscle and bone; his yellow aviators are melting down over his cheeks, fusing and sloughing off with the rest of his flesh. She knows the same thing is happening to her. She can’t even shake her head to deny his accusations, try as she might. She is paralyzed by a potent combination of Bliss and absolute, blind terror. Diana struggles for breath, feels like she’s drowning in heat. Feels like her lungs are melting inside her chest.

“You fight, and you spit poison and you rail against us, and you are _blind,_ deputy! You are blind to the fact that only I can save you!”

His eyes are utterly mad; so full of wildness, so _blue_ it almost hurts her to look. They are housed not by flesh, but only bleached bone now. The fingers clasping her tight are skeletal; she can feel the tips of bone digging through her own wasted and molten skin. Bone rasping on bone.

“Only I can save you!”

_“Only I can save you!”_

_“ONLY I CAN SAVE YOU!”_

. . .

“Is she dead?”

“No. She doesn’t want to wake up though-”

“Are you sure? She was floating _face down-”_

_“Yes,_ Holly, I can feel her fucking heartbeat!”

“Well-”

“Hold on-”

A sharp crack against her cheekbone is what finally knocks Diana back into something like consciousness.

She wheezes, rolling onto her side and curling up from where she’s prone on the ground, trying to protect herself somewhat from whatever new vague and malign entities threaten her.

“Hey—hey! It’s okay. We’re not gonna hurt you.”

“Ahh, fucking... _fuck,”_ Diana whines hoarsely, rolling over once more so that she’s propped on her elbow. She feels that familiar clenching of her abdominal muscles, knows what’s coming better than she has any right to.

The two women who dragged her from the drainage basin take some steps back, looking at each other with furrowed brows as she violently empties the meager contents of her stomach. It’s mostly river water.

She spits and gags and dry heaves for a few more minutes before one of them, darker-haired with a somewhat angular face, approaches carefully.

“It is her…”

“The deputy?”

“Mhm,” the dark-haired woman confirms. She squats beside Diana, not exactly making any moves to help, but looking concerned nonetheless. “Better now?”

Diana groans and rolls back onto her side, gets her first good look at her newest savior through narrowed eyes. The big silver hoops dangling from her ears catch in the sunlight, blinding the deputy for a half-second, reminding her of her latest Bliss-induced nightmare. _“Who are you?”_

The woman glances back to her companion, plain and blonde. “I’m Nora. And that’s Holly,” she replies, her gaze drifting back down to Diana. “And you must be Deputy Baker.”

Diana tentatively takes the hand Nora extends, letting the woman help her to her feet. She glances back and forth between the two of them. They’re dressed normal, jeans and t-shirts, and Diana’s anxiety settles a smidge. She reflexively reaches for the holster strapped around her thigh, not surprised to find it empty. “Where are we?”

“Bit northwest of the brewery. What happened to you?” Holly finally pipes up, taking a few cautious steps closer.

Diana’s narrowed gaze flicks to Holly. “The fucking _Bliss_ happened to me. You two know who I am, you must know about the absolute fucking _hard-on_ Joseph and his fucking siblings have for me.”

Holly’s brow pinches and she almost seems to shrink back. Nora, however, puts a hand out in something of a conciliatory gesture, trying to stop tempers from flaring. “Yeah...yeah, we’ve heard.”

Diana lets out a ragged sigh, reaching up to run a hand back through the wet, tangled mess of her hair. She glances up at the sky, notes the position of the sun. It’s morning; nine or ten, probably. “You haven’t seen two guys running around with a missile launcher and a doctor, have you?”

The women glance at each other again and then look back to her.

“Uh, no,” Nora replies a little cautiously. “Can’t say that we have. We’ve been avoiding the main roads—that’s how we found you all the way down here.”

Diana glances around finally, realizing they’re at the bottom of an embankment, on the shore beside what’s presumably a bit of the Henbane. A dragonfly buzzes past, blessedly ignorant to all that lies wrong with the world around them.

“Mom? Is it safe to come out now…?”

Diana whips her head toward the sound of a young boy’s voice, startled at what she hears.

“Yeah. Come on out, Shaun,” Nora calls toward a thick stand of bushes further up the embankment.

She walks forward to meet the child that emerges, settling a hand on his shoulder before turning and facing Diana again. “This is Deputy Baker. Remember, the woman we were talking about who might be able to help us?”

_“Holy shit,”_ Diana mutters. She bows her head and swipes her palms over the thighs of her pants to clean the dirt away. Then she reaches up and presses the heels of her hands against her eyes, trying to gather what remains of her wits in the face of this newest unexpected _responsibility._

Holly folds her arms across her chest, meandering forward a bit. “Listen, we’ll help you if you’ll help us. We’ve got weapons,” she says, suddenly reaching down to lift the hem of her shirt. There’s a pistol nestled into the waistband of her jeans. “The Resistance has an outpost at the jail, right? If we get you there, can you promise they’ll protect us?”

Diana looks over at the blonde, a grimace turning down the corners of her mouth. She doesn’t have much of a choice. Not with a kid involved. Even not knowing a thing about these women, but she hasn’t known a thing about _any_ of the civilians she’s managed to rescue from the clutches of Eden’s Gate. All she knows is that she needs to get back to the jail anyway, and if they’re close to Whistling Beaver, they’re not that far from the Cougars’ outpost.

So why does she feel so apprehensive?

“Yeah. Yeah, of course they’ll do what they can for you,” she replies wearily. “The county sheriff - Whitehorse - he’s been working overtime to keep the place upright, but...I’m sure he’ll be happy to take on some more people, as long as you’re willing to pitch in.”

The two women glance at each other again. Diana is still far too fatigued to catch the brief look of trepidation that passes between them.

“That sounds fair,” Nora finally posits. “We’d be happy for any assistance he can provide.”

. . .

_“Christ,_ Baker, what the hell were you thinking bringing those two here!?”

Diana frowns and spins to see Whitehorse crowding the doorway, one hand planted against the frame. His mouth mirrors the shape of his mustache; turned down, _angry._

She’d been in to check on Dr. Lindsey after hearing Sharky and Hurk had brought him back safely; left Holly, Nora and Shaun back near the entrance once they’d made it to the jail. She’d thought the three would easily find some assistance from Tracey or Virgil.

“What!?”

“Those two are _not Resistance.”_

Diana blinks. It takes a few moments for her to piece together his meaning. _“What!?_ How the fuck do you know that-?”

Whitehorse angles his head, letting out a heavy sigh. He reaches up to remove his hat, runs his free hand up over where he’s balding. “They’re in a holding cell for the moment, til we can figure out what to do, but I _know_ them, rook—I’ve been sheriff out here a long time. I knew Nora’s parents, and I know Holly. They’re both with Eden’s Gate.”

Diana turns back to the doctor, putting a hand up as if asking him to wait. “Uh, I’ll catch up with you later, okay,” she mutters distractedly before starting for the doorway, straight for Whitehorse. “They have a _fucking kid_ with them-!”

“Yeah, lots of families up and joined the church since they moved in; they’ve _got_ kids, we already knew that,” Whitehorse admonishes as he steps aside to let her past and then follows her back into the jail’s break room.

Diana’s mind reels. She’d been apprehensive, hadn’t known why; thought it was just Bliss lingering in her system, making her paranoid. She stalks across the room, back toward the makeshift armory, Whitehorse trailing along behind her. “So what are you gonna do,” she spits back over her shoulder.

The sheriff blinks, taken aback by his subordinate’s icy tone. He clears his throat, places his hat back on the crown of his head, straightens up and settles his hands on his belt. Watches as Diana stops at the armory desk and rattles off a string of weapons she needs. “We need to figure out what the hell they _want_. If they’re here doing reconnaissance, we can’t let them leave again.”

Diana takes the hunting knife placed in front of her, and then a couple Desert Eagles, sheathing and holstering her new weapons. Then she takes the AR-C placed on the desk last, checking the magazine before slinging it over her shoulder by its strap. “You got any spare radios back there?”

The woman manning the armory comes up with a CB and Diana takes it, giving her a nod of thanks before turning back to the sheriff. “They said they wanted protection. Was that just a fucking lie?”

Whitehorse huffs, following after her once more as she breezes past him and makes her way through the opposite doorway toward the holding cells. “I _don’t know,_ rook, but we can’t exactly rule out the possibility-”

She stops suddenly in the middle of the hallway, whips around to face him and he almost barrels right into her, huffing again and stopping himself up short.

“So...so what’s their deal, then? What do you know?”

The sheriff blinks and then gives her a withering look, shaking his head at her erratic and anxious behavior. “First of all, I’m gonna need you to calm down and take a breath. Can you do that, for God’s sake?”

Diana fumbles to clip the CB to her belt, grumbles something to herself and then just stands there looking at him expectantly.

Whitehorse sighs, looking off down the hallway for a beat before lowering his voice to answer her question. “Nora Adler’s family used to own a farm out in the valley. When Joseph and his people moved in, they... _saw the light,_ or what have you,” he says with a demonstrative wave of his hand, “up and sold all their assets off to John. Moved in up at the compound with their two daughters. Only, last I knew Nora’d _left_ years ago. Couldn’t stand the thought of losing the farm—couldn’t stand the _church_ even more, way I’d heard it. I don’t know when she came back, and I don’t know who the kid is—he’s too old to be her son.”

Diana absorbs this information, nods her head briefly. “Okay. And the other one?”

The sheriff shrugs, reaches up to wipe his palm down over his mustache. “Holly Pepper. Another local, though she never left. We...used to get calls about her ex-husband. He wasn’t, uh...well, he wasn’t exactly very good to her. But Joseph painted a real pretty picture; had her hook, line and sinker after the husband up and disappeared.”

“So why bother saving me? Why not drag my fucking carcass right back to Faith and Joseph?”

Whitehorse’s mouth twitches and he gives her another shrug. “If they wanted a way in here, _you_ were it, Baker. They must have known they’d be let in if they had you with ‘em.”

Diana fumes. She still feels like absolute shit, but to know that she’d been taken in so easily by the presence of a child? Put everyone sheltering in the jail at risk because of her own ineptitude? Anger lances through her, hot and sharp, fueling her anew.

“Let’s go have a _chat,_ then, shall we,” she hisses through her teeth.

Their three prisoners look up at the sound of the cell block door opening. Diana and Whitehorse make their way down the stairs, and the sheriff shoos out the guard he’d had posted so that they can have some privacy.

The boy, Shaun, sits curled up into Nora’s side on one of the cell beds, his eyes red-rimmed and tired.

She has an arm around the boy’s shoulders protectively, glares at Diana and the sheriff with no small amount of rancor when they approach. “I didn’t think this was what we meant when we asked for _assistance…”_

Diana stops in front of the cell door, sneers and crosses her arms belligerently. “And I didn’t think I was helping a couple of _fucking Peggies.”_

“We’re not-”

Nora shoots Holly a withering glare to shut her up before refocusing on Diana, frowning pointedly at the language she’d used in front of the boy. “It’s not like that.”

Diana scoffs and lets her eyes roll to the ceiling. “Okay. You wanna tell me how it is, then? Inquiring minds are dying to know—‘cause from where I’m standing, it doesn’t look so hot.”

Holly makes her way forward, grasping at the cell bars, looking almost frantic as she sees Diana placing a hand over one of the guns now strapped to her thigh. “Listen. Listen to me—whatever you heard, whatever they told you about me and John—it’s over! It’s been over for _months,_ I haven’t even _seen_ him in-”

Diana’s mouth immediately thins out into a tight line. She stiffens, looks at Holly, up and down quickly.

_“Goddamnit,”_ Nora hisses at her companion, _“shut up!_ You’re not helping our case-”

Whitehorse blinks, obviously taken aback by the impromptu confession. _“Oh,_ Holly,” he groans and bows his head, reaches up to scrub a hand down over his face.

“I just—they need to know! Look, we’re trying to _defect_ here, and I’m just trying to be honest with you,” she replies quickly, eyes darting back and forth between all of them. She lingers last on Whitehorse, like she’s trying to plead with the man she might’ve once known, maybe even been friendly with. “And Nora’s _never_ been with them, not really, you just said so yourself-”

Diana attempts to rein in the intense wave of indefinable _feeling_ that prickles through her, attention so sharply focused on Holly that whatever else is said starts to blur into background noise.

“That true, Adler?” Whitehorse queries, turning his attention to Nora. “God knows I’d like it to be…”

The woman glances down at Shaun and then sighs, rubbing a hand over his back reassuringly. “Yes, it is, Earl, I swear it. I—it’s a long story, but...look, when I left I went east, about as far from Montana as I could get before I hit the ocean. Got settled, started working for this independent news firm out in Boston. The Railroad? Time was, they were looking for their next big story, and I was...feeling pretty heartsick over leaving Nadine here with our parents. So, I...told them about Eden’s Gate. Told them there might be a story out here.”

The sheriff’s brow pinches. He reaches up to scrub his face again. “Those three kids that came out here last summer…?”

Nora shakes her head quickly. “No affiliation with me. I never met them, but I...heard what happened. That was around the time I started to realize things were getting too dangerous.”

“So why the hell are you still here?”

Diana finally finds the wherewithal to peel her gaze away from Holly, tries to hone her attention back in on Nora and the sheriff.

“I...I was trying to convince Nadine to leave with me again. But she was so young when I left - and our parents started using the Bliss so often - the cult pretty much _raised_ her. She’s completely devoted, and I...finally realized if I kept pushing, it could get me killed. And I have other responsibilities now,” she explains, glancing down at the boy nestled up against her.

“And what about you?” Whitehorse turns back to Holly, fixing her with a stern glare. “Finally realize John Seed’s a goddamn megalomaniac and not _second husband_ material?”

Diana’s gaze flicks to Whitehorse. She curls her lip, swallows down the nameless thing trying to claw its way up from inside her.

Holly frowns. They see her lip tremble, but she manages to maintain her composure enough to offer up something of an explanation. “I believed what we were doing was right. For a long time. I _believed_ it. I never liked how they were muscling people around, taking property and...and bullying, but...but when people started _dying…”_

The sheriff lets out a heavy sigh, watches the blonde shake her head miserably before looking down toward the floor. He turns to the deputy after a beat, bushy eyebrows going up. “Well...what do you think, rook?”

Diana puts her hands on her hips, turns away from all of them to scan the opposite side of the room. She closes her eyes for a moment, pushes the thought of _Holly and John_ as far into the back corner of her mind as it’ll go. “I think I need some _fucking sleep,_ Earl. Can we deal with this later?”

“You’re just gonna keep us in here!? There is a _child_ involved in this,” Nora cuts in venomously from behind her.

Whitehorse glances over at the cell before casting his gaze back to Diana. He’d seen her bloodshot eyes, the dark bags underneath them, the smudged makeup. The anxiousness, the irritation in her body language. They haven’t known each other long, but he’s good at reading people. And he knows what somebody looks like when they’re crashing.

“You had another run-in with Faith,” he mutters, and it’s not a question.

She looks at him sideways, grimacing.

Her silence is answer enough. He sighs, reaches up to rub the back of his neck before giving her one curt nod. “Fine. Go take one of the beds upstairs. I’ll make sure our _guests_ are comfortable for the time being.”

Diana’s expression finally softens just a touch. “Thank you,” she mutters, glancing back and locking eyes with Holly for just a moment before starting for the stairs.

“And don’t forget to put a call in to your friends! I’m sure they’d like to know you’re alright,” he calls after Diana as she heads for the stairs.


	19. Plans [an Interlude]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watching the time on the clock disappear
> 
> Fear is all I got left to fear
> 
> I got my enemies among these friends
> 
> You got means and baby I got plans
> 
> -Switchfoot, Bull In A China Shop

Diana sleeps restlessly for most of the afternoon. She dreams of bombs and Bliss and _him_.

She wakes with a gasp in a cold sweat, jolting up off the hard prison cot.

She doesn’t know where she is at first. Her eyes dart back and forth frantically for a few seconds before settling on the open door of the cell she’d claimed, and then she remembers.

Holly and Nora. The _defectors_. At least, that’s what they claim to be.

She sits up all the way, throws her legs over the edge of the cot. Her foot hits something heavy and she looks down to see a bottle of water starting to roll across the floor. She leans down and swipes it up before it goes too far, twisting off the cap and drinking from it greedily.

Her dreams leave her feeling exceptionally uneasy, even more so than usual. However, they have given her something of an idea. If the women can be trusted, that is.

She empties the bottle and tosses it onto the cot as she stands, reholstering her handguns and shouldering the AR-C.

Reaching up to swipe her dark hair back, tangled as it is from sleep and her impromptu dunk in the river, she makes her way out of the cell and toward the stairs.

Their prisoners are right where she left them; no sheriff in sight, though. Diana makes her way past a desk, drags an office chair away from it and over toward the cell where she stops, spins it and sits down, leaning forward and planting her hands on her thighs.

Holly and Nora look at her expectantly. Shaun lies asleep on the bed, and Diana feels like that’s probably for the best.

“Talk.”

Holly frowns, glancing over at her companion. Nora just looks at Diana with a smug and tired expression, pushing off from where she’s been leaned against the far wall of the cell. “About _what?”_

“You want me to trust you,” Diana starts in her most authoritative cop voice, “you’re gonna have to give me some evidence. Spill some secrets.”

Nora sighs, letting her eyes roll up toward the ceiling. “Look, at this point, I don’t know anything you don’t know. They’ve been pretty goddamn clear about their intent since Joseph gave us the word about the Collapse.”

Diana lets her gaze linger on Nora, trying to ascertain the woman’s honesty. “Do you believe in it?”

Nora pauses for a moment. She glances down at Shaun, her brows furrowing. “I...don’t want to. But...being back here for so long, surrounded by people who do? My own sister, my parents? It...that fear starts to rub off.”

Diana sighs, worrying at a spot on her newest pair of jeans where a hole has worn into the fabric already. Nora _seems_ genuine. “See...I wanna believe you, but, after what I heard earlier,” she trails off, her eyes leaving the brunette to lock onto Holly. “It’s gonna take some more convincing.”

Holly meets Diana’s stare from where she sits on the floor, legs drawn up to her chest with her arms locked around them. She grimaces. It looks like she’s been crying. “I told you it’s been _months_ since I even saw him. He didn’t—we weren’t-”

Diana angles her head, can’t help an irritated sneer from crossing her painted lips.

Holly’s lower lip trembles. It’s obvious she’s not made of the same stuff as Nora. Diana guesses if they _are_ lying, Holly will be the first to slip up.

“It got _lonely,_ okay!? And he was...he started out so friendly. He was kind and he always asked me how I was—seemed like he really _cared,_ and...and he told me everything was going to be okay,” she continues miserably.

Diana can’t help the scoff that escapes. “That’s how he started out, huh? I take it things didn’t stay that way.”

Holly blinks fast a few times, looks away toward the floor. “He’d tell me things, sometimes...things I don’t think I was supposed to know.” She pauses, one hand going up to trace fingertips across her collarbone, and Diana wonders if there’s scarred flesh beneath her shirt. “Things Jacob was doing up in the mountains. Things _he’d_ started doing-”

“Like what?”

Holly’s jaw works. Nora’s looking at her too, now. “Animal experiments-”

“I already know about the wolves,” Diana cuts in.

Holly finally raises her eyes and shakes her head. _“Before_ the wolves. They tried with other animals, bigger animals, but whatever... _formulas_ they were using, they couldn’t get it right. They couldn’t _control_ them—so they just let them go. Way I’ve heard, they’ve been terrorizing different corners of the county ever since...”

Diana frowns. That’s a new threat she certainly hadn’t been expecting. But without Whitehorse around, this is her opportunity to dig deeper in regards to the obvious elephant in the room; even if it’s an elephant only she can see. “What else? You and John were obviously fucking—and here I thought Joseph had his panties all bunched over the horrors of promiscuous sex. You’re telling me you risked that just to get laid and you’re _not_ still loyal to him?”

“It’s _not_...it was a _comfort_ thing, okay!? He’s the Father’s brother, of course I believed him when he told me there were exceptions to the rule!”

Diana scoffs once again and shakes her head. “It was a _comfort thing_ when he put his fucking hands around your neck?”

Holly blinks, her brow furrowing in confusion. “What?”

The deputy’s eyes narrow. That insinuation had been far too direct. Too specific. Like she was asking because she knew from experience.

She tries to play it off. “Don’t tell me _John Seed_ made _tender love_ to you all night long in front of the fire on that fucking bearskin rug. The way he carves people up, _hurts_ them...he wouldn’t know tenderness if it flew up and poked him in the fucking eye.”

Nora stands there silently, looking back and forth between them, checking out Shaun briefly to make sure the poor kid is still fast asleep. He certainly doesn’t need to hear any of this.

Holly swallows, closes her eyes like she’s hiding from the scrutiny. “You know, I’m not exactly comfortable talking to a _stranger_ about this...I’m only answering these questions because that’s how desperate we are. He...he was rough sometimes, but he never hurt me. But what he does has a _purpose_. I used to think it was...righteous. It was symbolic; this—this physical reminder that you could overcome your sins, overcome everything that was holding you back…”

_“Jesus,_ you people are fucking crazy…”

Holly grimaces. _“They_ don’t think it’s crazy. _I_ didn’t think it was crazy. Everything had a purpose; and when you’re preparing for a divine collapse...you don’t question the man who talks to God. You do what him and his heralds ask of you or you’re _lost.”_

“Do you know anything about cults?” Nora finally steps back into the conversation, asking Diana directly.

The deputy’s gaze slides to the brunette, considering for a moment. “I know enough.”

“Do you have any idea how easy it is to start believing in something when _everyone else_ around you believes in it too? When the people in charge keep telling you, over and over, that everyone _else_ is crazy? That the people _outside_ are the dangerous ones?”

Diana leans back in the chair, considering the other woman’s words.

“Do you know how hard it is to free yourself even a _little bit_ from that kind of indoctrination? That kind of hive mentality?”

Diana wets her lips, lets her gaze drift to the side, toward the stairs. “No, I guess I don’t…”

“Well, I’ll let you in on something; it’s _fucking hard._ I trust Holly. And I think you’d be doing yourself a favor by trusting her too.”

Diana sighs through her nose, nostrils flaring. She angles her gaze back. “Do you have access to the bunkers?”

Both women blink, glancing at each other, mirroring expressions of trepidation crossing their faces.

“Well, no one knows we’re trying to leave, I don’t think,” Holly starts a little cautiously, “so we’d be let in if we asked. Project members are usually free to come and go as they please…?”

“John’s got some people held prisoner. People who have helped me. And now I need to help them. One of them is Pastor Jeffries. I know he’s been aiding other people who’ve tried to leave Eden’s Gate; help me free him and the others...and he’ll help you, too.”

The two women look at each other again.

“And how do you propose we do that,” Nora asks a little incredulously, folding her arms.

Diana chews her lip and crosses one leg over the other. “I don’t know yet. Maybe I can figure out some way to...I don’t know, get some of the guards out of the way, cause a commotion somewhere else in the valley. Would they let you bring guns inside?”

Nora scoffs like _that’s_ the most ridiculous question she’s heard today. “Of course they would.”

Diana narrows her eyes, looks at her pointedly. “Would you be willing to _use_ them?”

The two women inside the cell share another look. They leave the question dangling open-ended.

_“Yo, PO-PO!”_

The upstairs door suddenly clangs against the wall and echoing footsteps crowd the catwalk above them and then the stairs.

Diana spins in the office chair to see Sharky, Hurk, Grace _and_ Jess all coming in. A bark from somewhere in the back reveals that Boomer’s along for the ride as well, and Diana doesn’t know what to do at the relief and excitement she sees plastered on their faces.

Sharky jumps the last few stairs and rushes over first, startling her by pushing the office chair back with palms planted beside each of her ears, leaning down to grace her with a big smooch right on her forehead.

She flails at the sudden backwards momentum, almost sending herself crashing to the floor before she realizes what’s happening and grabs onto him to keep the chair on all four rollers. _“Shit!_ Sharky, I need you to dial it back _at least_ like forty-five percent, man-!”

Sharky barks out a laugh, releases the chair and lets her tip forward again, planting his hands on his hips. “Sorry, dep, just—real fuckin’ glad to see you’re okay…” He trails off when he catches sight of the prisoners in the cell.

Hurk places a gloved hand on Diana’s shoulder when he comes up beside her, an uncharacteristically plaintive look on his face. “Real sorry I went and let you down back at the park, Double-D.”

Sharky clears his throat, gives a curt nod to the brunette on the other side of the bars. “Nora. Fancy, uh...seein’ you here.”

Grace and Jess approach on either side of Diana, inspecting her with more intense scrutiny.

Nora’s quiet for a moment, almost like she can’t figure out how or why Sharky knows her name. And then when recognition hits, it’s almost like a pall falls over her. She lets out a long-suffering sigh, fails miserably at keeping a look of exasperation from decorating her face. “Boshaw...”

“Mom?” Shaun rolls over onto his elbows, blinking sleepily after being woken up by all the commotion.

“What’s up, bud,” Nora answers softly, settling on the edge of the bed beside him and reaching over to smooth some of his hair from his forehead.

Sharky blinks, taking in the scene, staring a little too long even though he knows it’s rude.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” comes Shaun’s small reply as he sits up and buries his face into Nora’s shoulder.

Nora looks up, focusing on Diana, who’s busy conversing quietly with Jess and Grace in the background. She clears her throat loudly only to be ignored.

Sharky takes action after a moment though, turning around on a dime and tapping the deputy on the shoulder.

“Can you let us out to use the bathroom? _Please,”_ Nora asks a little resentfully.

Diana just stares blank-faced for a second, looks down, then looks back at the desk in the middle of the room. “Ah...shit, I think Earl’s got the key. Did any of you see him upstairs?”

“He was up on the wall with Tracey when we showed up,” Grace replies, cracking her knuckles in a smooth and practiced reflex. “Want me to go grab him…?”

“Would you?”

Grace nods an affirmative and heads for the stairs, takes them two at a time and disappears shortly after.

Jess eyes the two women in the cell suspiciously, glancing down at Diana after a beat. “What’s up with them?”

Diana sighs, tilting back in the chair as Boomer comes up and props his front paws on her thighs, trying like hell to reach up and lick her face. “They’re _defectors.”_

The hunter’s eyes narrow.

Sharky blinks, glancing back, obviously not having given much thought to why they were locked up.

“Shit. _You?_ I mean, I remember your parents were hella into all of Broseph’s sermons and shit back in the day, but I thought-”

Nora’s brow pinches. She rubs Shaun’s shoulder, locking eyes with Sharky again only grudgingly. “I left. But I came back for my sister.”

Sharky’s mouth works for a moment, like the gears are turning in his head but he’s trying to stop himself from speaking without thinking. “And, uh...had a kid in the meantime,” he tries to ask with a hint of feigned joviality in his voice.

Nora angles her head. _“Adopted one,_ yes.”

Sharky’s eyebrows go up. He reaches up to scratch under the brim of his hat, nodding. “Oh, yeah, okay—that’s cool-”

He shuts himself up when the door upstairs clangs open once more. Grace and Whitehorse make their way into the cell block, the sheriff fumbling with a huge ring of keys in his hands.

The prisoners are let free, this time for good. Diana converses with the sheriff and her friends, clueing them all in on the plan she’s got formulating.

Jess in particular puts up a stink when Diana says she wants to go with Nora and Holly to John’s bunker, playing a prisoner; harps on whether or not they can be trusted, whether they’ll sell her out to John the second they’re let in.

Diana informs them all, in no uncertain terms, that the women better not dream of it—because Shaun is going to be left in the care of the people there at the jail. She doesn’t like using the boy as collateral, but there’s really no other option.

Hurk, Sharky, Grace and Jess are being tasked with heading out to Green-Busch Fertilizer to take the facility back from cult hands as loudly as possible in hopes of both creating a distraction and stocking up on as much explosive material as they can get away with.

With Whitehorse set to watch over the boy - albeit unenthusiastically - in their absence, the groups split off from the jail early the next morning.

Diana takes a deserted cult van with Nora and Holly, placing herself on one of the wooden benches in the back while they ride up front. They discuss their options at length, and Diana continues to pick at Holly for any information she can provide about John’s bunker; layouts, control schemes, guard routines.

Jess is set to give them a signal on the radio when her and the others come down on the fertilizer plant, and they will wait tucked away at Davenport Farm, hoping to see a cavalry of Peggies rolling out from the bunker to quell the attack.

When they reach the farm, Holly hops out of the van to go and open up the barn’s huge doors so that Nora can tuck the vehicle inside. Diana clambers out of the back and immediately reaches for a cigarette, her anxiety about what she’s getting herself into starting to spike.

She takes a deep drag, crosses her arms, kicks the toe of one boot into the dirt and hay littering the floor. “If things go south in there...I want you two to focus on getting the others out.”

Nora and Holly both look over. This is the first she’s spoken in the last twenty minutes, since their plotting had ended in a prolonged and awkward silence.

“What are you talking about,” Nora asks a little incredulously, planting hands on her hips.

Diana finally looks up at them, letting smoke plume from her nostrils. “If things go south...the _others_ are your priority. Not me. If you’re delivering me to John...it’s best you two stay as far away from him as possible.” She pauses, looking over at Holly pointedly. _“Especially you.”_

Holly blinks, and it’s obvious this raises her hackles. She stands a bit more rigidly, her shoulders stiffening. “Why?”

Diana sighs, reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose. She holds no hard feelings towards Holly, not really. She pities her more than anything. John had played his little tender games with her, gotten what he’d wanted, lulled her into a sense of complacency along with every other person he’d baptized into Eden’s Gate.

In a way, Holly is lucky. She never had to see the truth hidden underneath, not directly. The desire for control, the violent impulsiveness; all the little cracks around the edges that Diana so effortlessly seems to have widened. It would have terrified her.

“Because it may not seem like it, but I would actually like to keep you _safe_. I am choosing to trust the both of you, and this is where I need you to trust me. I can handle myself with John. But I don’t know what he would do to you. If he realizes…”

“He will _kill you_ if he realizes, just like he’d kill us. Don’t sugarcoat this goddamn mess,” Nora cuts in acerbically. “We all need to be in this together. I know we can’t send you in there with weapons. You’re gonna be defenseless with him.”

_“Don’t fucking worry about me,”_ Diana shoots back just as venomously. “Joseph wants me alive. _You_ need to worry about finding the goddamn control room and letting those people out. I need you to make sure Joey Hudson, Mary May and Jerome make it the fuck out of there. Can you promise me that?”

Nora clenches her jaw, sighs heavily and shrugs her shoulders. “I guess I can promise we’ll try,” she finally rebuts.

“That’s all I ask,” Diana says as she takes one last drag from the cigarette and drops it, crushing it out under the sole of one boot. “Now I want you to hit me.”

_“What,”_ both women parrot each other in unison, obviously taken aback.

“We need this to look legit, right? So hit me,” she replies obstinately, sauntering over between the two of them. “Make it look like I put up a fight.”

Nora is finally the one to do it. Diana ends up with a bit of a bloody nose and a puffy cheek by the end, deems that satisfactory.

Her radio crackles to life while she’s in the middle of her third cigarette, not bothering to tilt her head back to stop the blood, just letting it trickle down her face while she sits on a hay bale and taps one foot impatiently.

_“Boomer, no!”_

Diana lets out a heavy breath, unclips the CB and brings it to her lips. “Boomer, _yes,”_ she replies.

There is only silence for a while after the short radio exchange.

The women shift on their feet, pace back and forth. Diana watches the road through the crack in the barn door they left open.

Minutes go by slowly, one after another. She reaches up to touch her tender cheek every so often, wincing. Nora really let her have it. Probably partial payback for the way they’d been treated back at the jail, and Diana can’t really blame her if that’s the case.

She tries not to think about John. Maybe he isn’t even there. Maybe the Peggies will take her back to that red room, thinking they’re leaving her for him, and everything will go off without a hitch and they’ll all be long gone before he even has time to get there.

The rumbling of engines outside drowns out her worried thoughts. She stands quickly, making her way to the door just in time to see a convoy of cult trucks roaring down the road. There must be nine or ten in all, kicking up dust in their wake with how dry it’s been.

She turns back to the other two, waves a hand. “Alright. Now or never. Nora, you drive. Holly, you get in back with me,” she commands, looking around the inside of the barn quickly. She spies what she’s searching for after a moment, a coiled length of rope thrown over an old sawhorse in one of the stalls.

“Tie me up with this,” Diana says after she goes over and cuts a good section off with her hunting knife, tossing it to Holly. She catches it awkwardly, almost fumbling.

The deputy pushes open the barn doors before climbing up into the back of the van. Nora backs them out, and Diana begins removing all her weapons. She sets them on the floor, instructs the women to bring as much as they can carry in the hopes of dispensing it amongst the prisoners.

She lets Holly bind her wrists together with the rope, watches out the back windows as they make their way up Black Horse Peak.

This is it.

She knows she won’t be able to do a thing to help once they’re inside; it’s no use trying to bring even a pocket knife. The Peggies will search her thoroughly before bringing her to John. But she is only bait; a simple distraction, nothing more. A plaything for the hungry dragon while the thieves sneak in for the treasure.

She wets her lips as they’re stopped at the first cult checkpoint, leaning back against the wall of the van. Holly’s got Diana’s own Desert Eagle pointed at her now and she almost wants to laugh. For a brief moment she wonders if she’s really being played after all.

The guards let them through quick enough when they’re told who exactly the cargo is, and before long the winding incline they’ve been following evens out and Nora’s slowing them to a crawl.

They hear voices outside. Obviously the guard at the checkpoint radioed ahead.

“Don’t be scared to push me around,” Diana mutters, giving Holly one last meaningful look before the back doors are thrown open and a gray, cloudy sky manages to brighten the inside of the van.

Holly stands and hauls Diana to her feet with the barrel of the gun against her back, guides her toward a loose group of bearded men who’ve gathered around the back of the van. Their clothes and skin are decorated with Eden’s cross. They sneer at her, crowding, reaching with grabbing fingers to pull her down to the ground.

“They got the deputy!”

“Get her inside, John’s gonna want to see this-!”

“She doesn’t deserve his mercy.”

Holly and Nora follow behind the group, keeping their eyes on Diana for as long as they can. They watch the men shove her, handle her roughly; watch as she hisses and spits at them, tells them in no uncertain terms just where it is they can stick their mercy.

“When the Collapse comes, you’ll be thankin’ us! Just remember that, _sinner,”_ one man yells from close behind her, shoving Diana forward so roughly she almost trips over her own feet.

“Take her down to the Confessional! John already knows she’s coming!’

_“Holly Pepper_ –been a bit since we’ve seen you around,” one of John’s Chosen suddenly cuts her off, causing her to stop in her tracks, blocking her view of the deputy. “You _gotta_ tell me how you managed to catch that damn witch.”


	20. The Price of Punishment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who could have thought the price of punishment could justify the price of ignorance?
> 
> They said it was because my temperament.
> 
> But I don't know, I guess it's redundant.
> 
> \- The Warriors, The Price Of Punishment

They bring her back down to the red-tinted dungeon.

Her nose has stopped bleeding by now, but the crust it’s dried into irritates her skin, probably mostly because she has no way of wiping it off with her hands bound together, both elbows clutched tightly in a Peggie’s fist.

John is there, waiting for her this time. He strides forward with a warm smile, clapping his hands. “Ahh…” he greets her with a satisfied sigh like artificial sweetener spilling from his lips, “welcome back, deputy.”

He removes a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket, tosses them to one of her captors who promptly pushes her down into a rolling chair and cuffs her to the armrest.

Diana grimaces, staring up at John venomously. Her fingers curl into fists. She tries not to think about the last time she was in a chair, but the flashes of memory push their way up to the surface of their own accord. Her nails dig into her palms, and if she’s not careful they’ll draw blood for how tightly her fists clench.

He ticks his chin up and that’s enough to send his henchmen on their way, leaving Diana and John alone with a steel clang of finality as the last man pulls the heavy door shut behind them.

He’s cleaned up since last she saw him. Beard neatly trimmed, clothes pressed, looking full of vim and vigor as he gives her a thorough undressing with his eyes.

He sidles closer, leans down to catch her chin in his hand, angling her head to check out that swollen cheek. “Did you really think you could move through our territory untracked? Unimpeded?”

Diana sneers. “Don’t take credit for what that fucking sister of yours did. _She’s_ the one who dosed me and left me for dead.”

John’s eyes flick up from her cheek to meet her stare, the corner of his own mouth turning down. “Don’t call her my _sister,”_ he says slowly, coldly, pushing her face away.

Diana snarls at the rough touch, angles her head back towards him defiantly as soon as he’s moved away. “What should I call her, then? A fucking spooky, brainwashed cunt?”

John only laughs at her crude language as he turns and makes his way over to his workbench, unlatching the lid of his little toolbox and getting to work removing several implements that shine when they catch that red light just right.

She notices he’s got that revolver of his tucked against the small of his back, in under his belt; can’t help the low worry starting to fill her up at how _terrible_ of an idea this was.

“A far more accurate assumption, I will give you that,” he says almost jovially, turning around and leaning back against the bench as he begins assembling his tattoo machine. “Tell me about it.”

She leans back in the chair, closes her eyes for a few moments. “About _what?”_

“The _Bliss,_ deputy. What you saw, what you felt.” He works diligently, keeping his focus on the machine in his hands as he attaches the barrel and tightens the screws that hold it in place. Finally, after a few beats of her continued silence, he looks up at her once more. “The Father was there, yes?”

Diana furrows her brows. She sighs, swallows, lets her gaze drift up to the ceiling, past that horrid chandelier. “He showed me...the Collapse, I guess…”

John’s attention focuses sharply on her. He pushes away from the workbench, strides over to that little table with the swing-arm lamp. He picks up the clip cord from the little power box that sits there and plugs it into the bottom of the tattoo machine, brings the gun buzzing to life. “Go on.”

Diana exhales, exasperated with him already. _“Why?”_

John turns the machine off, sets it down on the table and looks at her. “Everyone sees something a little different. It provides quite the intriguing glimpse into a person’s psyche. And you must know by now that I am keenly interested in getting a glimpse into _yours,”_ he finishes a bit roguishly, crossing the distance between them to encroach upon her space once again.

She can’t help the irritated bark of a laugh that escapes. She might as well tell him. He’ll probably get a kick out of it.

She lowers her gaze from the ceiling, boldly leans forward into his space, unwilling to let him have the satisfaction of ruffling her feathers. “I saw Faith with your people’s _blood_ in her _teeth._ And goddamn wolves circling all around. I saw a nuke go off, saw it burn everything. Saw it burn your brother to a bleached fucking skeleton all while he called me a demon for what I was doing to you.”

John watches her, eyes roving over the insolent expressions painting her face like he’s drinking them up; leans down even closer, plants both hands on the chair’s armrests. “Fascinating…”

_“What?”_

“That wrath. The way it squirms inside you.” He grins at her, too-blue eyes crinkling. “Faith would never let anyone see her like that. You’re _lying,”_ he hisses.

Diana blinks, taken aback. “I’m not _fucking lying!”_

John scoffs and tuts at her reproachfully, easing back a few inches. He produces a good-sized pocket knife, glinting silver with some sort of dyed wood or bone inlaid in the handle. Blue, of course.

In the blink of an eye he’s flipped it open, brandishing the tip of it against the soft meat beneath her chin. “Do you know what I do to liars, deputy?”

She inhales sharply, nostrils flaring, eyes widening. Wrenches her hands up, though they can’t go very far what with one arm being cuffed to the chair.

_“You destroy those who speak lies,”_ he recites quickly, speaking from rote memory. _“The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.”_

_“Of all the things I could possibly fucking lie to you about, trust me when I say your sister’s fucked up little vision quest isn’t one of them!”_ She jerks against the handcuffs again, tilting her chin up in a futile effort to keep it away from the tip of the blade. “That shit makes me fucking _sick,_ I don’t know how the hell you manage to rope people in with it, it’s a _fucking nightmare-!”_

John blinks, lowers the blade and presses the flat of it against her throat, partly to stop her from thrashing and making any sudden moves. He drags it downwards slowly, watches the way it softly indents the flesh, looking pensive for a moment. “I...apologize-”

_“What,”_ Diana stammers incredulously.

He inhales sharply, gaze flicking up to meet hers again. He can see the fear in her eyes, can’t help thinking back to the first time he’d actually met her. At the river. There wasn’t nearly enough Bliss in that water to make any normal person sick, but she’d practically been keeling over for how high she’d been.

“I should have known you wouldn’t lie. Not to me. Forgive me—I realize I must be patient, but-”

She grimaces. _Now_ he’s ruffling her feathers.

“Why are you so interested in what she does to me,” Diana cuts in, unwilling to acknowledge his sudden lapse into _humility_. It makes her nervous, makes her feel like all her edges are coming unraveled. “Are you _jealous,”_ she scoffs, curling her lip in that way that drives him crazy.

John’s expression cools significantly. He presses the tip of the blade into her skin once more, silently warning her to watch her tongue. And then he smirks. “She’s not the first ‘Faith,’ you know…”

Diana leans back even further, swallows thickly. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“We never had a sister,” John clarifies, completely ignoring her original question. “‘Faith’ is...a _construct;_ an abstract idea brought into being several times over now at the Father’s whim. Though _this one_ seems to be a clear favorite.”

This unprompted explanation of his brings up far more questions than answers. It certainly adds several uneasy layers to Faith’s ethereal and almost otherworldly mystique. Judging by the way he’s sneering, Diana can only surmise one thing. Her eyes widen slightly with realization as it strikes her. “You don’t like her. Do you?”

John taps the flat of the blade against her collarbone cheekily, like a little reward. _“Rachel_ is a spineless sycophant, nothing more than a trumped up dealer with tits and a pretty little face. Strategically, the idea of Faith is brilliant; one of Joseph’s finest. Implementation, however...well, that leaves much to be desired.”

He draws the knife across her collarbone, still only grazing the flesh, drawing goosebumps across her skin. “I _hate_ that fucking bitch. And _you_ are partly right—though I don’t think _jealousy_ is the appropriate word for my feelings on the subject. I don’t want you going back to the Henbane,” John finishes in a commanding tone, gaze rising to meet hers once more.

Diana angles her head and scoffs, casting a defiant look at him. “Your bossing me around didn’t work before we fucked and it certainly isn’t going to work now. She’s on _your side,_ choir boy, why not kindly just tell her to _fuck off_ and leave me alone?”

“Ahh,” John sighs almost happily, lips curling into a delicate smile, “there’s my _repugnant_ little wrath. Almost thought I’d lost her for a moment...”

He reaches up suddenly, his free hand curling behind her neck and pulling her forward so that he can kiss her.

She squeezes her eyes shut, refuses to return it. This is not why she’s here. It’s not.

He pulls back, sky blue eyes boyish now, searching her for something. “The Bliss was not made to _frighten_ people; the fact that your mind could conjure up such obscenities speaks volumes about the sickness inside you. _Confess,_ Diana—before me, before _God_. Your salvation lies here; not as one of Faith’s Angels or Jacob’s experiments.”

“I already told you, there is no _fucking salvation!_ There is no God—you can’t threaten me with something I don’t even believe in. Your mass delusion doesn’t have that kind of power over me.”

“But _I do_ , don’t I,” he queries, growing impatient, flicking the knife shut and returning it to one of his pockets. That hand digs for a moment, coming up with a small key that he uses to unlock the handcuffs, tossing them to the side where they clatter across the concrete floor.

He grabs at her bound wrists, pulls her closer roughly. “I told you everything has changed. You can feel it; I _know_ you can.”

She bares her teeth, tries to wrench her hands back from him fruitlessly. It unsettles her greatly when Joseph’s words spill from his mouth; feels like the worst possible of omens.

Especially because, in this case, he is right.

But she won’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it.

“There are forces at work that have drawn us together,” he presses on, eyes boring into her.

They are always as ice, frigid and cutting, glinting with cruel intent she can see despite whatever faux emotion he thinks he’s drawn across them. But now those eyes seem to _burn_. She can’t help looking into them, and it feels like her skin is flint, struck on steel and catching sparks. Despite how she tries to fight it.

“And isn’t that the mysterious wonder of _God,_ deputy,” he asks, leaning down, voice lowering. “Mustn’t it raise doubts when his hand is so obviously hard at work whether you _believe in it or not?”_

Diana grimaces, shakes her head. “God isn’t supposed to be that cruel,” she mutters through her teeth, trying so hard to maintain the indignation she’s clutched around herself like armor. She can no longer deny the certainty that he is interested in protecting her in some backwards fashion, even as he holds a knife to her throat.

John only laughs, that hand curling around the back of her neck once more. “You’ve got a lot to learn about the mysteries of the divine, my dear. God’s love is jealous; _consuming_. He demands all—and if he does not receive what he demands, well...you've seen what will happen.”

He yanks up on the rope between her wrists, hauling her arms up above her head, pulling her to her feet with the force of it. “And I can show you the rest…”

John suddenly pivots her and starts crowding her backwards, and she almost stumbles with having to navigate blindly. She grunts as he pulls her arms up even further, forcing her onto her tiptoes. She feels the binding between her wrists catch on something, looks up as her back hits the wall.

She only has a brief moment to realize he’s fixed the rope over a fucking _meat hook_ that hangs from the ceiling.

And then he is on her, palms dragging down the incline of her arms, pressing her back into the wall, his beard pricking against her skin when he claims her mouth in a vicious, hungry kiss.

She twists and bucks against him when the realization finally sinks in that she has _nowhere to go._ Delayed as it is, it hits her all the harder and she twists her face away, making a sound of disgust as one leg comes up instinctively.

John sidesteps just in time to avoid a thigh to his groin, tut-tutting and grabbing her chin to turn her face back. “Now, now, my dear, none of that,” he coos, coming in close once more to bury his face against her ear, dragging teeth across the skin of her neck. “Where’s that woman who knows exactly what she’s doing, hm?”

_“She’s busy not making the same mistake twice, asshole,”_ Diana hisses through her teeth, pushing against the floor with the toes of her boots to try and angle herself away.

“Oh, stop being so fucking dramatic and _let go,_ Diana—I know this is a facade, a lie you’re telling yourself because you _think_ you and your little resistance pals are on the righteous path,” he mutters, his hand snaking down from her chin all the way to her belt.

He slips his fingers up under the hem of her shirt, bares his teeth when he feels her stomach tense beneath his touch. “Don’t be a fool. Don’t deny yourself a path to Eden…”

She can’t stop the way she responds to his touch. She is looking into that abyss again, deep into it, and it is so terribly easy to get lost in what she sees, in what he’s doing to her, in what _she_ is apparently doing to _him_.

“I don’t give a fuck about your Eden,” she almost whispers, closing her eyes, grasping tenuously for the resolve she feels slipping away between her fingers.

“Then don’t deny yourself to _me,”_ he mutters as his fingers hook over the buckle of her belt. They stop in that precarious position, however, and he meets her accusatory stare when she finally opens her eyes.

“Why did you tell me those things about Faith,” she asks quietly, swallowing, trying and failing to quell the mad beating of her heart. She wonders if he can hear it.

“Perhaps it’s because I am trying to establish a bond of _trust_ with you.” His other hand moves between them so that he can work to undo her belt, the unspoken moment when she’d had the opportunity to tell him to stop slipping away. “Perhaps it’s because I would like to scale those insurmountable walls you’ve built up around yourself—pull the darkness from your marrow and cast it aside so that you can be _free…”_

She twists a little where she hangs, biting her lip as his hands find her zipper and tug it down painfully slowly. She looks down, unable to meet the intensity of his stare, eyes focusing on the angry crossed-out scar covering his chest.

“Perhaps it’s a simple conflict of interest,” he murmurs, one hand slipping in underneath the tight fabric to touch her, to run fingertips down over the moth tattoo that decorates her abdomen, down lower, down to where he can feel exactly what he’s doing to her.

Diana tries unsuccessfully to bite back a curse at the insistent press of his fingers, at the way they curl inside her, and she is losing herself once again, arms straining against where she hangs, hips bucking forward unceremoniously.

He grins, pressing bodily up against her. “Yess, that’s _it,”_ he nips at her neck, insinuating himself as close as he can, moving his own hips against her thigh and delighting at all the little noises slipping their way out of her, so unlike the unruly and ferocious woman who’s proven his match up til now.

“I want you. _All_ of you. All for _myself_. Your demons, your secrets, your wrath, your pride, your _despair,”_ he mutters fervently, moving his way down her body, taking the collar of her shirt between his teeth and pulling before he yanks his hand from her and kneels to begin unlacing her boots. “I will drink them all down—lift them from you—raise you up into the light.”

He tosses her boots aside, one after the other, and then he reaches up and rips her jeans down her legs with enough force to pull her away from the wall. They land in a pile at his feet and before she can even get a word in to tell him to _shut the fuck up_ he’s forcing her legs apart, pulling her knees over his shoulders and digging his fingers into her thighs, kneading roughly as he buries his face into her cunt and starts a merciless rhythm, sucking and kissing the sensitive skin there.

Diana’s mouth falls open. His newest endeavor _has_ managed to quiet him, but her helplessness and his hunger are a potent combination.

She is left speechless herself, her head dropping back against the wall, overcome by the ministrations of his mouth. It’s not fair. He shouldn’t be this good with it. He shouldn’t be able to draw out the simpering, pathetic groans she hears spilling from her own lips so easily.

She flexes her fists impotently, the muscles in her arms taut as they hold most of her weight. It burns, but the sensations fluttering up and blooming and setting her nerves on fire are nearly enough to mask the pain. _Why is he so fucking good with his stupid mouth?_

He holds her tightly, hums against her sensitive skin, nips a final time with his teeth before ducking out from between her legs and rising to his full height, reaching down to fumble with his own belt.

Diana groans in protest at the sudden loss of the sensation; she’d been _so goddamn close._ Her mind had gone blessedly _empty_ for a few minutes there and she is surprised how resentful she is when all of her thoughts are suddenly clamoring inside her skull once again.

_“Hurry the fuck up,”_ she demands between heavy breaths.

John smirks and actually snickers at her, dips in for a rough kiss and forces her to taste herself on his tongue. He lingers, breathing in the scent of her, pupils blown wide in those blue eyes. But his hands quicken their pace.

Before long he’s reaching down and grabbing her ass and hoisting her up and she wraps her legs tightly around his waist and then he is in her.

She moans around his tongue, pulling down against the hook, trying to lift her hips to meet him but it’s hard to do when every rough push of his own only serves to slam her tailbone back into the wall, completely at his mercy.

The rigorous friction the old rope is subjected to finally proves to be too much after a few minutes and it snaps suddenly, causing Diana to fling her arms around John’s neck when it lets go.

He grunts and holds her steady, barely even missing a beat, managing to hold all of her weight up on his own as she digs her fingernails into his shoulder and the back of his neck.

“Ah, _shit,”_ she hisses as she smacks the back of her head against the wall, tensing her legs around him as a sharp lance of pleasure races through her.

“Ahh...say it…say yes— _say yes for me,”_ he stammers, driving her up against the wall, hands gripping her so tightly she distantly wonders if she won’t have his fingerprints on her ass for a week.

_“Yes for me,”_ she parrots with something that comes out like a half-gasp/half-laugh.

_“Fuck’s sake,”_ he mutters with a frustrated groan, slamming her into the wall particularly hard in response to her infuriating puerility.

They don’t even hear the gunshots going off outside the room.

Nor do they hear the sound of the heavy steel door opening.

“Oh my lord— _Deputy?!”_

Diana’s gaze drops from the complex workings of that horrid antler chandelier and lands upon Holly, standing across the room, frozen as the handle of the door leaves her trembling fingers and it swings shut behind her.

In her other hand she still carries Diana’s Desert Eagle.

John stops. All Diana can hear is his heavy breath for a few moments, hot against her ear before he suddenly lets her drop back to her feet on the ground, parting from her with a veritable storm approaching in his eyes.

He fixes himself carefully before turning around while Diana scrambles to pull her pants back on, shrinking against the wall.

“Holly,” he starts with feigned joviality, taking a step forward, putting tattooed hands out palms up in a placating gesture.

“It’s not-“

Holly raises the gun, clutches the grip in both hands tightly. Her hazel eyes are big as saucers as they dart back and forth between the two of them. _“What the hell is this?”_

Diana watches the expression on the other woman’s face change from horror to confusion to shocked disappointment. Diana isn’t crying or screaming, isn’t scrambling away from him, isn’t moving to attack him now that his back is turned. And she realizes only as she sees the understanding dawning upon Holly that this is _exactly_ what it looks like.

“Holly, my dear, please don’t jump to conclusions—this can be quite easily explained,” John says as he actually steps partway in front of Diana.

But Holly ignores him. “Is - _Goddamnit_ \- is _this_ why you wanted us to risk _everything_ bringing you down here!?” Holly’s voice trembles with rage and indignation as she moves the gun in the deputy’s direction.

John’s eyes narrow. He cocks his head slightly to the side, casts a long sideways glance back at Diana. Chooses to ignore the near continuous sound of gunfire outside practically rattling the bunker’s walls.

“Holly, _please_ shut the fuck up-!”

“You wanted _us_ to go and save your friends!? You made me feel like shit, you _poked_ and _prodded_ me about him, and then you still made me _trust you!_ _For this!?”_ Holly’s nearly yelling by the time she finishes, practically in a frenzy.

Of course, Diana sees what happens before Holly does. By the time she’s scrambling forward to try and stop John, he’s already reached back and pulled the revolver from his waistband, where it’s somehow remained faithfully tucked this whole time.

The sound of the gun firing is damn near deafening.

Holly stumbles backwards a step, drops the Desert Eagle. Her mouth opens like she’s trying to take a breath but all they hear is a horrible wheeze. There is red blooming on her chest, staining her shirt.

“Fuck! _No!”_ Diana sprints forward from where she’d frozen, but just as she’s rushing by John manages to catch her by one arm and swing her around, throwing her toward the middle of the room. She skids to the floor with a sharp cry, landing hard on her knees and the heels of her hands.

“Goddamnit! _God-fucking-damn you,”_ she spits, flipping over, going to push herself back to her feet.

John waits until Holly’s sunk to the floor, sure she’s no longer a threat before he rounds on Diana. That deep and terrible mania is back in his eyes. “You _did_ lie to me,” he mutters far too calmly as he jams the gun back into his waistband.

He stalks forward, puts the sole of a polished shoe against her shoulder and kicks her back to the ground.

_“You just fucking killed her-!”_ Diana lands on her elbows with a hard thud. That raw, eviscerated feeling is back. This is all her fault. She’d told Holly she’d try to _protect_ her. It wasn’t supposed to happen like _this_. They were supposed to get the others _out._

_“Eden’s Gate does not suffer apostolates,”_ John hisses, stalking forward, grabbing her by one arm and dragging her over near the small table. “And _I_ will not suffer your foolish fucking attempts at trickery!”

Diana writhes, trying to pull herself away from him to get to Holly but he hauls her back over and shoves her onto the floor on her stomach, planting one foot between her shoulder blades.

_“How!?”_ Diana squirms, wheezing from the pressure on her ribs, nails clawing against the concrete. _“How the fuck could you do that to someone you-”_

John cuts her off with a short, mirthless laugh. “Someone I _fucked?_ Don’t tell me you never had the urge. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the boyfriend and his _Bowie knife._ So which was it? Your _lust?_ Or your _pride,_ deputy?”

_“What!?”_

“Which was it that killed poor, misguided Holly? _Hm?”_ He presses his foot harder upon her back, leaning forward slightly, waiting for her response.

Diana can’t help crying out, feels tears springing up in her eyes. “My—my _pride. It was my pride, you fucking lunatic-!”_

“Hm.”

She hears the tattoo gun come buzzing to life, has to bite back the bitter sob that threatens to escape. She can’t stop from crying out again, though, when he drops to one knee on her back, ripping down the collar of her shirt to expose her shoulders.

“Please—fuck, John, _please don’t-!”_

“Shut up. And hold still…”

The needle digs into her shoulder blade without any preamble. She can feel it reverberating against the bone and it fucking _hurts_. She clenches her teeth, trying not to give him the satisfaction of hearing her scream or cry.

Every second feels like forever. All she can do is stare at the bloodstained floor, clenching her fists impotently, trying to breathe against the weight of him on her back, the jarring pain of the tattoo gun as he draws it over her flesh.

She deserves this. She’d given in once again, couldn’t fucking say no to him, couldn’t tell him to just _stop_. She’s put everything in jeopardy. Betrayed her friends, betrayed _Holly_. And the poor woman had paid for it with her life.

Selfish. It’s so unbelievably _selfish_.

“I really don’t know why you're so upset....”

Diana grinds her teeth, blinking fast to try and clear the tears from her eyes. She remains furiously silent at his lighthearted prodding, but inside she is screaming.

John leans down, shifting on top of her, dragging the needle painfully slowly. “How many of our faithful have you murdered without so much as a second thought? Each one of them was a _person_. Thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams— _families!_ Are you so obtuse that those things only matter when the person espouses blind loyalty to _your cause_ alone?!”

_“Fuck you! Like you’re any fucking different!?”_ Diana shrieks at him, starts struggling and feels him jerk the tattoo gun away from her back quickly. _“Those fucking bodies you freaks gutted and strung up all over the goddamn county!? You are a fucking hypocrite, so fucking full of shit-!”_

He grinds his knee into her back and places his free hand at the side of her head, pushing it down against the floor and cutting her off. _“Every single_ _one_ of them serves a greater purpose now. You should be _thankful_ —if I were playing by my brother’s rules, I should do the same to you for what you’ve done, _deputy,”_ he hisses, forcing her to be still as he lowers the machine and continues with his work.

_“You’re a fucking monster,”_ she grits out, half-muffled.

“And yet...I am the only one who can save you,” his whisper comes from dangerously close above her. “She would have been a threat to both of us. Surely you recognize _that,_ at the very least.”

Diana bites the inside of her cheek, squeezes her eyes shut. It is true. And she hates it. She hates how so much of what he says is bitter, painful truth.

After another few minutes the needle finally leaves her burning, brutalized skin. Diana lets out the breath she’d been holding for some time, shaky and tearful, hoping he is finished.

“Mother _fucker!”_

Diana hears a loud crack, a grunt, and then the clattering of the tattoo gun as it drops and dies, skidding across the floor as far as its cord will let it. The weight is suddenly gone from her back and she angles her head painfully to see John dropping to the floor beside her.

The chair she’d been cuffed to topples to the ground a few seconds later, and then Joey Hudson is taking a knee beside her, leaning down and worming an arm in under her shoulder. She is bruised and bloody, and her eyes are wild.

“Rook! Can you walk? We need to get the fuck out of here, _now!”_


	21. Roll On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The time’s real short, you know the distance is long
> 
> I’d like to have a jet but it’s not in the song
> 
> Climb back in the cab, cross your fingers for luck
> 
> We gotta keep moving if we’re going to make a buck
> 
> \- Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Roll On Down The Highway

Diana insists on helping Nora carry Holly all the way out of John’s bunker.

What she _wants_ to do is lie back down on the cold concrete and never get up again. She and John could stay that way forever, rotting down below the earth and forgotten no matter whether the Collapse comes or not.

But she forces her feet to move, bears the brunt of her guilt; refuses even as rescued resistance members encircle them and offer endlessly to switch out, to take turns carrying the body.

Joey is a mess; jumpy as hell, twitchy, itching to take out her pain and misery on any straggling Peggies they see roaming the halls. She doesn’t understand why they’re carrying Holly Pepper out with them.

Joey had wanted to kill John; Diana had seen it in her eyes. The only thing that had saved him from being shot with his own damn revolver was Joey’s panic over Diana and Nora’s fussing over Holly and their need to _hurry_. And the deputy isn’t quite sure how she feels about that. She hadn’t even had time to put her boots back on, and no one has said anything about it.

She doesn’t ask how the hell they managed to shut off the alarms the place is surely rigged with. Doesn’t berate Nora for an answer as to why her and Holly separated back there, why the fuck Holly came after her before they’d gotten the rest to safety. Doesn’t say much of anything until they’re all above ground, splitting into groups to commandeer a few vehicles.

It is then she realizes that Pastor Jerome and Mary May Fairgrave are nowhere to be seen.

She rounds on Nora, practically snapping with the strain. Between her and Hudson, they’re a sorry sight, and Nora doesn’t flinch away from letting them both know as much. Not unkindly, but stern in such a way that denotes she’s dealt with some kind of trauma in the past, knows well enough the whole tangled mess is a lengthy discussion best saved for when they are safely away from this place.

Suffice to say, Nora hadn’t seen hide nor hair of either Mary May or the pastor on any security cameras, nor did they emerge from any of the bunker’s cells when the doors were unlocked.

Diana fumes in the passenger seat of the cult truck they’ve taken, chewing her fingernails, staring sullenly out the window as Nora drives her and Hudson away from Black Horse Peak.

Her shoulders feel like they’re on fire. She tries to hone in on that pain, forces herself to recall in excruciating detail the way she’d fucking _pleaded_ with him not to do it. Tries to imprint the look on Holly’s face the moment realization took hold. Tries to imagine what the others would do, what they’d look like if they learned the same horrible truth. Jess, Grace, Joey, Mary May…

Shit. Is it possible John has been holding Mary May and Jerome out at the ranch?

She can’t go back there.

Can she?

Now would be the perfect time.

“We need to bury Holly.”

Diana’s head snaps around at Nora’s statement.

 _Holly_.

“Why the fuck are we _burying_ her? She was a _Peggie,”_ Hudson spits from the backseat.

 _“She wasn’t_ —not anymore. We were _both_ trying to get the fuck out of Eden’s Gate” Nora responds harshly, glancing up into the rear view.

 _“What!?_ Stop the truck. _Stop the fucking truck right now-!”_

 _“HUDSON!”_ Diana rounds on her partner, barely recognizing the shrill sound of her own voice. _“I can’t do this! Not now!_ I told her I would try to _protect_ her! They both risked their _fucking lives_ to go in and rescue all of you—the only reason you’re out here right now is because of them!”

Joey’s mouth hinges shut. She still looks indignant - _terrified_ \- for a few moments. But then she slumps back against the seat, puts her elbow up on the door and presses her bruised knuckles to her lips, pensive. Sharky would say she looks _squirrelly_.

“I should have killed that fucking maniac,” she mutters after a minute of silence.

. . .

Nora knows where Holly’s old house is, but they don’t bury her there. She says the whole property has been converted for Bliss cultivation, and none of them wants anything to do with that.

Near the crest of a large hill Nora pulls the truck off the road and nestles it into the edge of a sprawling field of non-hallucinogenic wildflowers. Indian paintbrush, harebell, primrose and buttercups paint the gentle incline in purples and reds and oranges.

Diana didn’t know Holly, not really; but she thinks _she_ wouldn’t mind being buried out here, and that’s got to be good enough. It’s all she’s got.

Nora solemnly places the biggest rock she could find atop the freshly turned mound they’ve dug, and the three women stand there for a few moments in awkward silence.

Diana feels like screaming again. Out here, in the open Montana countryside, it would probably carry for miles. Decidedly not a good idea. But she fights the powerful urge anyway, feeling completely lost, completely _alone_ despite these people who’ve made it their business to surround her.

She does not want to return to the jail, even after hearing the news over the radio that the others made it back safely with two entire vans packed full of fertilizer. But that’s where they’re all supposed to reconvene. It’s where she’s needed.

Would they still need her if they knew? Does she still _want_ them to need her? Did she _ever?_

Diana finally turns away from Holly’s grave, dark hair whipping around her face from the breeze that’s kicked up. “We should go. You need to get back to that kid,” she says to Nora a little hoarsely without actually looking at her.

Nora glances over as she turns and starts walking. “And you need somebody to look at your back.”

Diana only grunts in response. She can feel the shirt stuck to her shoulder blades with dried blood. John had yanked her collar down damn near hard enough to choke her, but somehow hadn’t ripped the fabric.

A shudder runs through her as she reaches out to pull open the truck’s passenger door. She almost feels like she’s going to puke.

“You said Whitehorse is at the jail, right?”

“Yeah,” Diana replies at the tail-end of a steadying inhale. She opens the door and climbs inside the truck, willing the feeling back down.

“And Staci?” Joey asks somewhat hopefully.

Diana’s lip curls slightly. “He’s, uh…they’ve got him up in the Whitetails…”

 _“Fuck.”_ Joey doesn’t bother putting on a seatbelt, just hangs her head in her hands there in the backseat as Nora starts the engine.

. . .

Diana ends up on the roof of the jail later that evening in an attempt to escape all of her friends’ good intentions. With Joey safely in Whitehorse’s line of sight, she’d started wandering after Dr. Lindsey checked her over and applied about a gallon of antibiotic to the angry pride tattoo carved across her shoulders. She found an access ladder tucked away at one corner of the building and just started climbing.

The air is different up here; cleaner. The Bliss pollen is pervasive down on the ground, clinging low, making everyone feel a little _off._

She can see people moving down on the wall, hear little snippets of their conversations traveling. It’s packed; Nora and Holly had managed to free a good twenty people from John’s bunker and they’ve all congregated here, jumped right in to helping fortify the building and waiting until someone leads them to take back Fall’s End.

That someone is probably going to be her.

She raises her umpteenth cigarette, notices her hand still shakes for the umpteenth time. She can’t stop thinking about what John said; about lying to herself, being obtuse, being a _murderer._ She’s told herself it’s kill or be killed, but what do you do if ‘be killed’ is not, in fact, the other option? How much pain could she spare the others if she just gave in and said _yes?_

“Hey.”

Diana closes her eyes briefly, bows her head into the space between her knees where she’s drawn them up to her chest.

“You okay?” Grace asks as she comes up beside the deputy. She doesn’t make a move to sit just yet, waiting to gauge how welcome her presence actually is.

Diana appreciates that about Grace more than anything; she claims she’s bad with people but she isn’t, not really. She is sharp and incredibly perceptive. And she’s been through her own share of shit. But Grace is yet one more person whose life was inextricably changed by John Seed, one more person who will turn her back on Diana if she _ever_ finds out about what the deputy has done.

“Not really,” Diana replies before taking a drag from the cigarette, rolling her lighter over and over in her other hand, rubbing her thumb across the scratched plastic.

Grace sighs, shifting on her feet beside the deputy before taking a seat. “Jess is itchin’ to talk to you. But I told her to hang back for a bit…don’t know if I’m much better, but you know how worked up she gets. This is just between us, but…I figured you might not wanna deal with that right now.”

Diana scoffs softly and nods.

“You rescued a whole lot of good people today. I don’t exactly understand this weird martyr thing you’ve got goin’ on, but…I _do_ understand what it’s like losin’ a squadmate…living through things you never even thought you’d see. Wonderin’ if living through it is really the better option.”

Diana stills, staring hard out across the river and the hills and forest that stretch on for miles. “I told them…I _told them_ to get the others out first. My _weird martyr thing_ is trying to keep other people from getting themselves _killed._ If she hadn’t come back for me _\- if she’d just fucking left it alone_ \- she wouldn’t be dead.”

“You think they would’ve left you down there even if you told ‘em to? I mean…not to throw you under the bus or anything, but you did make damn sure they knew that little boy was gonna stay here. Not under strict threat or anything, but, uh…I think it was kind of implied.”

“C’mon Grace, Whitehorse wouldn’t have done anything to a _kid._ _Especially_ if they’d still come back with everybody else. _Especially_ because I told him before we left that they might come back without me.”

Diana heaves out a ragged sigh, shrugging her shoulders hopelessly. “Knowing she was one of them—knowing she got so scared she was willing to risk her life just to get the fuck away, and it was _me_ that brought her right back into it…”

Knowing John and his family and their twisted dogma had scared Holly so badly, she had started to lose her very faith. And Diana had betrayed that. She’d betrayed another woman’s lapse into reason by _losing_ her own, completely and willfully ignoring it.

Holly’s death is the first that has hit her far too close to home in this war. They weren’t friends, didn’t know each other, barely _trusted_ each other; but Diana had a hand in her death when Holly was trying to turn things around, trying to prove herself to the one person she thought might be able to help; the one person who’s now turned out to be the biggest fraud in the whole fucking county.

Diana is culpable, guilty by far more than association.

And the Peggies she’s killed with her own hands? Who’s to say any one of them wasn’t another Holly? If she were better trained at negotiation, could she have saved more people than she’s destroyed? Could she have stopped the thing inside her that compels her to take an eye for an eye, escalate problems instead of actually working to solve them? If she were better, kinder, less reckless, a hell of a lot less fucking _vengeful-_

She startles when Grace’s hand touches her arm.

“You still with me?”

“Yeah. Sorry-” Diana replies, blinking, hastily stubbing out the cigarette she’s let burn down to the filter. “What?”

“I said you’re in _shock._ I’ve been there—it’s not easy. And I don’t know if this’ll help, but…my drill sergeant told me, years ago, whenever I felt like I was slipping, to focus on the work. That was somethin’ that was always gonna be there, somethin’ I could _control._ Somethin’ I could rely on when everything else felt like it was crumbling away.”

Diana grimaces, picks at the torn knee of her jeans. “What if I start to think the work isn’t worth it anymore…”

The sniper frowns, angling her head slightly.

“This fighting, taking down Peggies—I mean I get that we’re on our own out here, that’s pretty fucking clear now, but, how…how do you live with yourself knowing the things you’ve done…?” Diana’s voice cracks slightly and she looks over at Grace only for a moment, cautiously. The question is twofold, though Grace only knows part of it.

“That was the work,” Grace replies evenly after a few moments of weighty silence. “They gave me my targets and I went out and I did what I had to do.”

She reaches up to pull the ball cap from her head, runs a hand back over her thick ebony hair. “And I never missed. And I know there’s a lot of fucked up, backwards psychology behind that. But it’s what I told myself. That I was doin’ good—a force for good. _A real all-American, protecting our freedom,”_ she scoffs, shakes her head, fiddles with the hat in her hands.

“When I got home, they threw me a goddamn _party._ Wanted to know my kill-count. And all I wanted was to be left alone. All I ended up with was PTSD and years of therapy and this looming suspicion that somethin’ _exactly like this_ might happen one day—and I still don’t know how I live with myself. Some days I…I don’t know if I want to.”

Diana recognizes the hard truth in Grace’s words, wants to latch onto it because it is a tenuous thread that connects them, that guilt. Maybe she can’t speak about the unnatural thing that keeps drawing her and John Seed together, but she _can_ speak about this.

“But you do…”

“Yeah…somehow I do. One day at a time, I guess. But one thing you should remember is that we are _all_ in this knowin’ the risks—Holly included-”

_“Baker - damnit - where the hell did you run off to?”_

Diana grimaces and heaves out a sigh at the sheriff’s interruption, glancing down toward the radio clipped to her belt. She catches Grace giving her a look.

“No rest for the wicked, huh,” the sniper mutters smugly, and Diana thinks she’s never heard a more accurate idiom.

She unclips the radio and holds it up, presses the talk button. “I’m here, I just…needed some air. Everything alright?”

_“We just had a runner show up from the Whitetails. I know you deserve a rest, rook, but…Eli sure could use some help up there.”_

Diana finds out the scout is there because Jacob Seed and his Chosen have finally managed to cut off their radio communication entirely. They have squads scattered throughout the mountains, suddenly all on their own, unable to contact each other or the Wolf’s Den.

They need those radio towers taken back if they’re going to have any chance at continuing the fight.

No rest for the wicked, indeed.

They put a call in to Adelaide, ask her to fly over from the marina. Speaking with Grace, Jess, Whitehorse and the militia scout, Diana comes to the conclusion their best option is to split into teams; there are two radio towers nestled up in the mountains, and if they attack both at once it might serve to minimize Jacob’s ability to overwhelm them with reinforcements.

They have to strike hard and fast.

After some discussion, they try to put a call out to Nick Rye back in the valley as well; if they can fly both teams in with airborne vehicles equipped with heavy guns, they might stand a chance against Jacob’s helicopter convoys.

What they are greeted with instead when they switch the jail’s higher-bandwidth ham radio to the channel commonly used by folks in the valley is unsettling.

 _“-think you could ply me,_ trick me _with your little play at being a Trojan horse? Do you think we’ll waver?_ We’ll find them. _We will track them down and we will rescue them from the warped words of their kidnappers! They will_ all _be brought back to atone.”_

The people gathered in the old cellblock fall eerily quiet, looking around at each other as John’s voice echoes from the radio’s speakers.

 _“For you see, Atonement is the final step before accepting the word of the Father into your heart. Our sins, having been finally exposed, can now be removed—freeing our souls and opening our hearts. Now, the pain of Atonement is measured by the severity of the sin, and thanks to your deputy, the sins of this resistance are indeed…severe. You will_ all _atone for what the deputy has done. You will_ all _welcome the word of the Father into your hearts. You will all say_ yes.”

Diana grips the edge of the table where she stands in the middle of the room, white-knuckled; his voice sparks something sour inside her, something rotten that wants to claw its way up and out and find him and tear at those pretty blue eyes and rip at his sneering face and expose him for what he really is.

_“Your actions have consequences, Diana. And I couldn’t help but notice - as I’m sure you did also - that a few of your friends are missing. Don’t worry—I’ve been taking good care of them. And I’ll be gathering them in Fall’s End in exactly five days’ time to atone for your sins. You’re welcome to join us—after all, if it weren’t for you, they wouldn’t be in this predicament. This is your last chance to say yes. Five days. Don’t be late.”_

Things are unbearably quiet for a few moments before the message loops over and starts playing from the beginning. The bastard; he’d actually pre-recorded it.

_“Congratulations, deputy. Does it feel good to know how many people you’ve just condemned with your misguided little crusade-?”_

Tracey quickly shuts the radio off, crossing her arms and looking thoroughly disgusted.

 _“Fuck that,”_ Jess spits harshly, leaning forward over the table and flattening her palms against it. “Five days is plenty of time for us to help out the Whitetails _and_ get Mary May and Pastor Jerome back. _None of us_ is getting atoned by that fucking freak.”

“What about Pratt?” Joey interjects firmly.

“We haven’t forgotten about Pratt _or_ the marshal—right, rook?” Whitehorse adds, glancing in Diana’s direction.

Diana frowns, shakes her head as if she can simply clear out John’s words to think better. There is too much swirling inside her brain and no way to compartmentalize any of it. “No, I just—we just need to take things one step at a time. We can’t do everything all at once! And we can’t trick our way into Jacob’s bunker like we did with John’s-”

“She’s right,” Nora speaks up from the other side of the table. “Jacob’s armory is airtight. His people, his entire _setup_ —John’s hold on the valley is _child’s play_ compared to that. A kid playing at toy soldiers ‘cause he’s seen his big brother do the real thing. And the Vet Center…” she shakes her head, looks around at the people gathered there. “No one gets in there. And the ones who do—don’t come out the same.”

An ominous shudder racks Diana’s frame and she has to bow her head, close her eyes briefly against the echoes of that mantra he’d tried to instill in her.

 _“That’s even more fucking reason for us to go in there and get him,”_ Joey asserts almost frantically. “I just spent almost _three weeks_ locked up in John Seed’s fucking bunker with his fucking demented followers, how much _worse_ must it be for him!? _He needs help-”_

 _“Stop,”_ Whitehorse admonishes loudly, slapping a hand down on the table. _“I know._ But I need you to get yourself together, deputy. Now, the fact of the matter is, there is every possible chance that we are going to lose some people in this fight-”

Diana forcibly ends the meeting then and there, unable to continue what was ramping up to be a full blown argument. She’d seen the wild look coming back into Joey’s eyes, couldn’t stand the accusations welling behind them. Well-deserved, of course. There’s always something more she could have done, could still do, _should_ still do. She knows this well enough without Joey throwing her own suffering back at her.

They gear up with heavy guns and flak jackets. The tightness of the kevlar against her shoulders makes her wince, shifting uncomfortably. There’s no escaping that reminder, the little piece John took from her all for himself. The first sin he’s collected.

She makes her way through the jail, corralling the others and sending them outside, catches sight of Sharky standing off to the side of the courtyard with Nora. She whistles at them, startling Sharky out of what almost looks to be an attempt at _flirting;_ shotgun slung lazily over his shoulder, chest puffed out.

“Uh, shit. Yeah–comin’, dep!”

Diana’s gaze moves from him to the brunette, and she catches the look the other woman gives her.

“I’d say I’d go with you, you know, but-”

Diana shakes her head, stopping Nora before she can even finish. “No. You’ve done more than enough already. Stay here with Shaun. Stay _safe.”_ She glances back at Sharky for a moment. “Are you…still planning on trying to get out of the county?”

Nora nods, follows the deputy’s gaze for an even briefer moment. “Yeah. There was another person we were supposed to meet up with, in a few weeks. Megan. She, uh…she’s got a little boy, too, and she needed time to make sure they could slip out safely.”

“Good,” Diana mutters before turning away, hearing the distinctive sound of a helicopter coming in. “That’s good.”

She wants to say more, say something about Holly, but she doesn’t have the time and doesn’t know what to say anyway. “When you get out, you tell somebody about this. Call your news agents, call the fucking national guard. Tell them what’s happening out here.”

“I will,” Nora affirms, watching pensively as Diana gives her one final nod and walks away to pair up with Sharky and head for the exit.

Diana can’t help giving him an assessing look as he falls into step beside her, far too jaunty for the dangers they’re headed into. “Alright. Spill it. What’s the deal?”

She’d lie through her teeth if someone asked her the same question. But she can’t help her nosiness. She’s noticed the way he treads around Nora, purposefully goes out of his way to position himself close by, stutters around his own words sometimes even while trying to act confident. It’s endearing in its own way, and it makes her ache inside for something indefinable she won’t ever have.

“You remember that story I told you about burnin’ down the baseball field when I was a kid,” he replies easily, not even missing a beat. “Well, I spent _hours_ trailing lighter fluid out there so it’d say ‘Nora go out with me’ when I finally lit it up. ‘Course it didn’t exactly pan out, but…shit, what can I say? She’s even hotter now than she was back then. I’m seriously considering tryin’ it again, you know?”

Diana can’t help sputtering. Laughing is the absolute _last_ thing she’s felt like doing all day, but Sharky’s unabashedness always manages to take her by surprise. She’s thankful for it, even as she elbows him a little roughly. “If you wanna go burn down the whole fuckin’ Henbane declaring your intentions, you have my blessing. Who knows—maybe second time’s the charm…”

Sharky smirks even as his face reddens up a bit, pushing open the heavy door to allow her to walk outside. “Much as I’d love to take on that challenge, I can’t burn the _whole thing_ down…it is the home of Chateau Boshaw, after all. And if I even got half a chance in hell of bringin’ that minx back there, my plan is to keep _mi casa_ safe and sound til then, shorty.”


	22. Powertrip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gods told me to relax
> 
> They said I'm gonna be fixed up right
> 
> I'm never gonna work another day in my life
> 
> I'm way too busy power-tripping
> 
> But I'm gonna shed you some light
> 
> -Monster Magnet, Powertrip

Taking out the jammers on the radio towers proves to be no small feat. But the teams split up smart; Sharky and Hurk stay on the ground with their highly destructive explosive ammunition, Grace tagging along with them to provide more controlled long-range backup. 

Diana takes to the sky with Jess and Adelaide, sucking down her fear once more so that they can attack the northernmost tower, nestled high up in the mountains as it is. 

For all the deputy’s worry about forfeiting so many lives, fighting Jacob’s soldiers proves a vastly different experience from both John and Faith’s followers. The Angels are completely lost, barely even alive, minds rotted away from so much exposure to the Bliss; and John’s people are vicious, there’s no doubt about that, but they’re still _human._

But Jacob’s Chosen are an honest to God _army._ They pull no punches, and they are hellbent on giving back just as much as the Resistance dishes out.

Adelaide dropped both women off on the ground safely upwind of the tower a short time ago, taking back to the skies once they’d disappeared into the trees. 

And once the frequency jammer at the top of the tower is blown to hell, Diana shoots a flare into the sky; a signal for Adelaide to retreat back to the Henbane before Jacob’s own helicopter convoys can catch up to her. 

Diana pulls a carabiner from her flak vest, attached by a strong lanyard, and clips it over one of the thick cables that runs from where it’s attached to the tower just above her head all the way down to the ground.

She doesn’t give herself time to be afraid, not when there are bullets whizzing past every which way from the Peggies still remaining down below. Even after Adelaide made a few sweeping passes with her mounted guns, they keep coming like rats swarming from a sewer. 

She lands _hard_. Fumbles with the carabiner, trying like hell to get it unclipped with shaking hands. She catches movement out of the corner of her eye, looks up to see a cultist coming at her full bore; fumbles even more frantically with her gear until the revving of an engine from somewhere on her other side gets loud enough and close enough to grab her attention.

A cult truck comes hurtling up over the grassy knoll beside where Diana sits half-crumpled, barreling straight into the Peggie that had been coming at her with a sickening, solid _thud_. He goes flying and the truck screeches to a stop, digging up huge patches of grass under its tires. 

Diana sucks in a big breath and tries to bring all her focus in on the _fucking carabiner;_ finally slides the clip off the cable, rolls and lurches to her feet, pushing her way towards the truck on legs that feel like jello. 

Before she’s even all the way inside the cab Jess slams her foot down on the accelerator, digging up even more dirt as the tires spin for a few moments before finally picking up some traction. They lurch down over the other side of the knoll just as Diana manages to pull the door shut, heading for the winding dirt road that will take them down the mountain and away from the tower relay.

Bullets ping off the truck’s frame in a rapid staccato as they careen around a sharp curve, the truck spitting up dust in its wake. Diana flies across the cab, shouting incoherently and throwing her hands out to stop from smashing her face on the gear shift. 

_“Hold on!”_ Jess shouts through gritted teeth, and suddenly the truck is bouncing wildly, bumping and thumping over the uneven slats of an _incredibly_ narrow wooden bridge. 

Diana scrambles to sit back up straight, making the mistake of looking out the window to see a sheer drop just over the edge of the bridge’s safety rail. She jumps and curses as Jess lets the truck drift to the right slightly, just enough for the passenger mirror to catch on that rail and rip clean off from how fast they’re going.

 _“Where the fuck did you learn to drive!?”_ Diana yells, gripping the oh-shit handle, not sure if it’s worth trying to even put on a seatbelt. 

_“Dutch taught me!”_

Diana doesn’t know why, but somehow that makes perfect sense. Jess’s driver’s ed probably consisted mostly of hours of watching old Clutch Nixon tapes in Dutch’s basement.

They fly off the other side of the bridge, drifting slightly when the tires hit dirt once more. Jess corrects it, bringing them wide around another curve in the mountainside. 

And there before them, at an old ranger checkpoint, sits a massive cult roadblock. Sandbags, makeshift barricades, and a convoy of trucks sit strewn thickly across the road, waiting for them.

Diana’s eyes go wide. She leans forward, flattens a palm against the dashboard, glances over at Jess. 

_“Fuck,”_ the hunter deadpans.

Diana looks around wildly, spots a break in the trees off to their left and points toward it. “Over there!”

Jess looks back at her sideways for a moment, but it’s clear this is their only option if they don’t want to get plugged full of bullets by Jacob’s men. 

_“Hold onto your ass, dep,”_ she says through her teeth as she spins the wheel hard to the left.

Diana makes a strangled sound that functions as some kind of affirmative, finally yanking at the seatbelt and extending it across her chest in frantic preparation for what’s to come.

They careen off the road and over an embankment that turns out to be steeper than either of them anticipated. The truck crashes down through the underbrush, plowing over downed trees and debris, Jess maneuvering wildly to keep the front end from smashing into anything that will put a stop to their momentum. 

They can hear gunshots from back on the ridge. 

Then a muted, ominous whistling sound. 

And then they are lurching forward as the back end of the truck hurtles up off the ground. A loud explosion deafens them. The ground comes up to meet the windshield and for a few moments Diana experiences a euphoric rush of weightlessness before the glass smashes and the roof crumples on top of them - or beneath them - it’s really impossible to tell. 

. . .

She wakes up in a cage. 

She can’t remember how she got there. 

There’s a ragged looking man squatting down beside her, offering out what looks to be a dog bowl full of something mysterious. 

She startles, scrambles into a half-sitting position and reaches out to slap the bowl away in a frantic gut reaction. It clatters against the cage floor, spilling its contents and rolling on one edge before it hits the bars, rattles, and stills.

“One of you will be _strong.”_

She looks up from where the bowl has landed. And there is Staci, standing on the other side of the bars - clutching at them - looking down at her through drooping lids, his face marred with dark, ugly bruises.

There are people sobbing quietly somewhere, muttering to themselves. The abrasive sound of metal scraping against concrete offends her sensitive ears; it feels like it’s scraping against the inside of her _skull._ Rapid bursts of automatic gunfire somewhere in the distance add to the nightmare. 

And Jacob fucking Seed completes it.

“Get outta here, Peaches,” Jacob pushes Staci aside as he comes up to the cage.

Diana watches in horror as her colleague obeys without a word, shuffling backwards quickly and clasping his hands, keeping his eyes on the oldest of the siblings. 

“You know, deputy...if it were up to me you would’ve been dead a long time ago,” he says almost carelessly, angling his head as he looks down at her.

Her cagemate has scrambled away by now, into the furthest back corner of the small metal box. 

Diana feels her breath quicken at the sight of the soldier. It’s taken a minute, but now that she’s awake she realizes she is in an _immense_ amount of pain. She feels sticky all over, and it occurs to her that it probably _isn’t_ just stale sweat. 

One of those fuckers had a RAT-4 or a missile launcher. Something explosive had hit the back end of the truck, sent her and Jess ass-over-teakettle.

_Jess._

Diana bares her teeth, sits up a little straighter though it pains her to do so. _“Where is she?”_

Jacob smirks faintly, glances around at their surroundings. “She’s here. I been trying to get my hands on that little hellcat for too long now. So thanks, deputy.” 

He gives her a little smile with that signature Seed _warmth,_ rubs his scarred hands together and pats them as if he’s gotten into something dirty. “But _you’re_ who I’m interested in at the moment. Me and Joseph, both.” 

“You see,” he starts and then inhales deeply, looking around again and up at the sky as if choosing his next words is very important. “I love my family. And I will do anything within my power to protect them. _Anything,”_ he finishes with a quiet, forceful surety, his piercing gaze landing on her once more.

She trembles under that shrewd and calculating stare. There is no posturing here, no brittle mask she can pick at and break apart like the ones John constantly dons and sheds. This is just him, just who he is. Cold. Resolute in purpose. Emotionally blank even as he expounds about love. 

“And I’ve had my concerns for a while that John might be...starting to lose sight of what’s important,” Jacob says after a thoughtful pause, taking a step closer, his long shadow draping over her where she sits. “He’s still so much like a kid, gets so... _hyper-focused_ on things. You got younger siblings?” 

Diana blinks, tries to wet her lips with a tongue that feels like dry sandpaper. “No,” she answers honestly, her voice sounding like an unfamiliar croak. 

“Hm. I guessed as much. You seem like the selfish type,” he quips ambivalently. “Well, let me explain it to you. The youngest ones always got a knack for gettin’ themselves into some kind of trouble; messing around with things they shouldn’t. Ain’t nothin’ like that sweet, sweet rebellion, huh, dep?”

She grimaces up at him, determined not to break eye contact. She remembers well enough his stance on weakness and strength, and she is hellbent on not showing him even an ounce of the former. “This sounds like it’s got everything to do with your brother and _nothing_ to do with me. I want to know Jess Black is _safe_. Otherwise, I don’t give a flying fuck about whatever you’re talking about.” 

Her eyes flicker, focusing behind him. Jacob notices and glances back at the murmurs of his men as they part to let Joseph through. He turns back to her with a smirk, rapping his knuckles against one of the bars. “Well you should, little girl. ‘Cause I’m talking about _you.”_

He gives her a pointed look before turning away to meet Joseph, clasping arms with his younger brother. They linger for a moment before their leader turns his gaze on her. 

Joseph walks forward, squats down in front of the cage and wraps a hand around one of the bars so that he can speak to her at eye level. Clever bastard. 

“I know you’re in pain right now. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh. But you’re not the only one to be tested.” His gaze breaks from her for a brief moment. “Did you know that I had a wife?” 

Joseph holds out his forearm, bare to where his crisp white shirt sleeve is rolled up to his elbow. 

“So beautiful, isn’t she?” he mutters, running fingertips over the portrait etched there in faded black ink. 

“We were pregnant with our first child, and we were only babies ourselves, really. And I was terrified. Of becoming a father, mostly about money—but she wasn’t worried. She had faith that things were gonna work out. She always had faith,” he says wistfully, the corner of his mouth turning up ever so slightly. 

“Then one day she was going to go visit a friend. And...there was an accident. The Lord taketh,” he mutters, brows furrowing. 

Joseph stares past Diana for a few lingering moments like he’s looking back into the past, savoring the flavor of his own pain. Then his gaze flicks back to her, tinted yellow by those aviators he wears. “You know what that’s like...don’t you, Deputy Baker?”

She can only scowl. Of course she thinks of Liliana first. The life they were supposed to make together - all the the silly dreams, the plans - snuffed out one night in a dark alley behind the fucking Great Falls _VideoShack_. 

And then, on the very tail end of that, Diana thinks of her mother. A shell after her husband had died so suddenly, a shell still after she remarried. Moved them all the way out here to Montana at the whim of that _fuck_. The fire had taken them both, but it’s only her mother Diana still grieves. Though she’d been grieving a lot longer than that, just hadn’t known it for what it was at the time; the woman she’d known as a child had died with the news of her father. 

A sad sort of smile crosses Joseph’s face as he watches her relive her own pain. “Yes...you do know what it feels like.”

He proceeds to tell her about the emergency C-section and being rushed to the hospital; being brought to his daughter, told that _God was looking out for her._ Tells her they _prayed._ Tells her he was given a _choice_. He heard God’s plan and he made his choice and he pinched her breathing tubes shut and _he killed her._

“The Lord giveth and the Lord... _taketh_. Pain. _Sacrifice._ These are all a part of his test. And we have to prove that we can serve God...no matter what he asks. Do you understand, deputy?” 

For a moment she forgets that her body is bruised and battered; all she can focus on is the horrible, biblical _bullshit_ Joseph is so adept at using to justify his own unforgivable actions. He truly believes that what he’s done is right. 

She finally steels, hardens her gaze, sneers back at the man on the other side of the bars. “No…I don’t _understand,_ you crazy fuck.” 

Jacob’s eyes narrow from where he stands a few feet behind his brother. If looks could kill, she’d be dead three times over in the second it takes for her to notice. 

Joseph blinks, actually taken aback by her crude response. He tilts his head and then stands to his full height and looks down at her with something that feels very much like pity. “I am prepared to do whatever it takes to protect my family. I’ve told you, I did not ask for this.” 

He pauses, rubbing his thumb over the rosary beads wrapped around his fingers. “But my patience...and my _forgiveness_...they only extend so far. And when my olive branch must become a sword...I will not hesitate, deputy. If you insist on this misguided rebellion - if you insist on playing your little games with my baby brother - the punishment will be exacted swiftly.”

She looks on as he turns away from her, a new and hellish layer of vague despair stopping up any response she might have offered. 

Joseph pauses to tell his brother that he’s done well before disappearing back into the Veteran’s Center. 

And then Jacob approaches the cage once more. And he pulls the music box from his pocket. 

And that song makes her head buzz, a growing crescendo of unholy static that makes everything go red. 

And then there is only blood and spent bullets and the overwhelming need to kill.

. . .

“There. Now you are _all_ ready for your Atonement.” John takes a step back, the infernal buzzing of his tattoo machine dying out as he waves it in front of himself in a little flourish. 

His gaze skates across the chests of his prisoners, tied to chairs in a neat line before him. 

_Pride. Envy. Greed._ And _Greed_ again. 

Of course the Ryes make a matching pair. 

A sneer turns down his mouth as he mentally itemizes every single slight these four in particular have perpetrated against him. There are many.

He almost hopes the sinning deputy doesn’t bother showing up on time; he’d very much like to be rid of these false friends and fatalistically misguided rebels. 

So unwilling to open their eyes and see the heart of the Project’s mission. So unyielding in their refusal to take that leap and just say _yes._ To see that there is only salvation that awaits them if they would just _do as he fucking says._

“The deputy’s gonna kick your fuckin’ ass, Seed,” Mary May states resolutely, looking up at him with so much defiance in those pale blue eyes.

He hasn’t heard a single peep from the deputy since she escaped with the rest of her little friends. She’d dealt his pride a healthy blow; and all she’d left him with was yet another concussion and a wounded ego. And these four. 

“Some advice for you, Miss Fairgrave. Don’t get _this one_ removed, hm?”

His sneer turns up into a beaming smile as he eyes the ragged letters on her chest. He holds the tattoo machine out to his side and one of his followers immediately steps forward to take it from him, shuffling back again without a word. 

“She ain’t gonna let you sick fucks get away with any of this,” Nick Rye adds, glaring at him through a black eye.

John’s gaze slides across to Nick and he takes a threatening step forward, the tap of his sole echoing in the quiet church. “Trust me when I say I’m quite eagerly looking forward to whatever wrath your _dear deputy_ thinks she’s going to be bringing down upon me,” he hisses, reaching out to jab Nick hard in the chest, right where he’d tattooed the rival pilot only a short time ago. 

Nick clenches his jaw and grunts, hunching over in the chair in a knee-jerk bid to protect his wounded skin. 

_“Get the fuck away from him,”_ Kim spits, jerking forward in the chair like she might actually be able to stop him. _“Haven’t you done enough?”_

John chuckles, glancing down at the blood and ink on his index finger before rubbing his thumb against it, watching as it smears and spreads. “Oh, Kim, my dear,” he tuts, his gaze rising again to meet hers. “I haven’t done _nearly_ enough.”

. . .

She wakes in a pool of blood at the bottom of yet another cliff. 

It stinks. There are flies buzzing around the corpses scattered all about her.

She wonders if _she’s_ supposed to be dead too. 

She’s in too much pain for this to be anything but life.

Rather than being tired, Diana feels…almost _invigorated_. Filled with a grim sense of purpose, even as she limps away from the pile of corpses; no radio, no weapons, _no Jess and no Pratt._

But she needs to get back to the valley. She doesn’t know how much time has passed, but it feels like days. She doesn’t want to know what John will do to Jerome and Mary May if she doesn’t make his arbitrary little deadline. After what happened with Holly, she can’t take the chance that he’ll go easy on her allies. 

All she can do is hope that Jess is smart enough not to do anything that’ll get her and Pratt killed.

She comes upon a narrow stream at some point, follows it until it joins with another and deepens. Bordering on desperate, she crawls in entirely clothed, trying to scrub at the blood that’s soaked in and stained. After walking caked in it for what feels like all day the smell had begun to make her gag; stomach grumbling, muscles clenching on emptiness. 

A low grumble startles Diana out of her half-frenzied scrubbing. She stills, blinks a few times before slowly raising her gaze to the source of the sound. 

There, on the bank just a few feet away from her, is the _biggest fucking grizzly bear_ she’s ever seen. 

She watches, completely frozen, as the beast produces another low rumble from deep within its chest and flops down on its backside on the bank. 

They watch each other for a few tense moments. Diana wets her lips, straightens up as painfully slowly as she can. She feels fucking _feral._ She wants to cut and run but she knows enough to be sure that is the absolute _worst_ thing she could do. 

She takes one very cautious step backwards. And another. Winces as she takes a third up onto dry land and her shoe squelches noisily.

The bear rumbles once more, eyeing her almost lazily before it starts shaking its massive head back and forth, raising a paw the size of a catcher’s mitt to scratch just below one ear. 

She takes two more steps. Tries to even out her breathing. Keeps her eyes locked on the animal. 

The bear seems to sigh heavily, almost like the way she’s seen dogs do hundreds of times before. And then it lays down on its side on the riverbank, shakes a few times and rolls over onto its back. 

She takes the chance and fucking _books it._

She crashes through the underbrush, darting between trees, vaulting over downed limbs and rocks and runs as far and as fast as she can. 

Diana runs until her legs simply give out beneath her.

She crashes to the ground, gulping in air, both sides in painful, cramping stitches. Her vision swims from exhaustion and dehydration. She claws at the ground, digging ragged little holes into the moss and dirt. 

She fights against unconsciousness for as long as she can, but there is no strength left in her to get back up. 

When she wakes with a start some unknown hours later, the world is shrouded in darkness. 

And she is shrouded in some kind of unusual warmth. It’s organic—the kind you’d only get from being pressed up against another body, sharing heat. 

Her sudden thrashing startles whatever is curled up beside her and she turns to look at the same time it does. 

And comes face to face with the _grizzly._

It seems to _harumph_ at her tiredly, obviously displeased at being woken from a comfortable slumber, and she feels her heart dropping into her stomach. 

And then the bear shakes its head, lets out something that almost sounds like a _purr,_ and she sees it. The collar around its neck. If she squints, she can almost make out the little pattern that adorns the thick, worn fabric.

She finally recognizes the animal from all those Montana Board of Tourism commercials; she’s seen him on T-shirts, even seen a goddamn _bobble-head_ on somebody’s desk back at the station. 

“Fuckin’... _Cheeseburger!?”_


	23. Oh, John II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh John! Bold and brave!
> 
> He's finding us a family
> 
> He's teaching us the faith
> 
> Oh John! Keep us safe!
> 
> He's gonna march us right through Eden's Gate
> 
> \- The Hope County Choir, Oh John

Diana can hear the church bell clanging long before she reaches the town center. 

It sounds in time to _train hunt kill sacrifice,_ keeping beat to the infernal chant that won’t leave her head. 

She has no idea what day it is, knows only by the ominous chime of that bell that she’s either right on time or she’s _too late._

She prefers not to think about the latter; she isn’t sure what she’ll do if those people she’d sworn to help are dead, strung up, _mutilated_. 

She is sure about one thing, though—she will kill him if it comes to that. 

Maybe that’s what Joseph’s cryptic little fucking speech was all about - pain, _sacrifice_ \- is it worth sacrificing these people in a war for their free will? Free will means nothing if there’s no one left to exercise it. Wouldn’t it be better to just give in, _say yes,_ give themselves some kind of fucking chance at surviving this? At surviving _the Collapse,_ if it comes? 

Diana does not want to sacrifice anymore. She’s seen it firsthand. She does not want what happened to Holly to happen to anyone else. 

She walks down the street, a pilfered assault rifle dangling from one hand. Cheeseburger had mauled a few cultists on their trek to find a road, and after she’d looted what remained of the bodies - trying desperately not to gag all the while - she was still oddly regretful to leave the animal behind. He just wouldn’t fit in the car. 

That big cross the Peggies had painted on the street in the middle of Fall’s End is still there, though it’s somewhat washed out now. She treads over it with barely a glance, focusing instead on the church. Her eyes follow the gaudy red carpet laid out all the way to the sidewalk, and then to the white drapery and jimson weed arrangements adorning the church’s gates. 

It looks like somebody’s getting _married._

Dark shapes draw her eye toward the large double doors. She stops walking when she realizes what they are. Dead crows, nailed up in the shape of an arch to frame the church’s entryway. 

She starts deeply regretting not contacting the others before coming back here. The thought hadn’t even occurred to her. After the crash and the time spent in Jacob’s cages and doing God only knows what else, her brains feel like they’ve been squeezed through a _lemon juicer;_ she’s been losing focus, losing _time_ like those people who claim they’ve been abducted by aliens.

Diana stands there staring at the garish display for a full few minutes, trying to collect herself. Trying to sort through all the little buzzing jigsaw pieces in her head. 

Then she grimaces, raises the gun and walks forward to meet whatever fresh Hell John Seed has planned for her. 

She manages to duck the blow the first Peggie throws at her as she shoulders her way through the door, lunging and jamming the butt of her rifle up into his gut. She doesn’t see the second one, though, a woman off to her right. What she _does_ see is John standing back near the front of the church, grinning at her before a sharp blow throws her world into muddled darkness. 

Flashes of red crawl along the insides of her eyelids. A sharp, needling pain against her collarbone jerks her back to consciousness. She wheezes; there’s a boot pressing down on the base of her throat. 

She looks up to see the cultist that had booped her on the fucking nose the first time she’d been taken to John’s bunker those weeks ago. Once she recognizes him she instinctively bares her teeth and hisses, reaching up to claw at his ankle just as he pulls his foot away.

She only takes notice of that infernal buzzing once it’s stopped; she’d been half-convinced it was all in her head.

“Hold still,” John threatens curtly above her, drawing her frantic gaze downwards from the Peggie she’d sworn to kill. He’s yanked the tattoo gun away from her chest, and she belatedly realizes _that’s_ what was giving her so much fucking pain. 

“It’s supposed to say ‘wrath,’ not… _‘rat.’”_

Diana thrashes beneath him, panic fully settling in. _“Get the fuck off me,”_ she spits through gritted teeth. 

John sucks his teeth reproachfully, reaches out with his free hand and pushes her back down to the church floor. His henchman’s boot finds its way onto her shoulder, his heel grinding into the socket in unarguable warning. 

The buzzing starts up again and John leans down, lowering the gun, pressing the needle back into her tender flesh. The tattoo he’d put across her shoulders only a week ago still pains her, feels like it’s most definitely not healing clean, and now _this?_

“Sin must be exposed so it may be absolved,” he says, tearing his gaze away from his work to catch her eyes for a moment. “If we hide our sin, we hide ourselves.” 

He looks so earnest, speaking in low tones like what he’s saying is meant just for her, like the church isn’t full of Peggies all waiting to plug her full of bullets at the expense of her sins; like _they_ aren’t a glaring testament to his own twisted ideas about what constitutes sin and righteousness. 

“You will not hide any longer, Diana. Your wrath, your _lust_ —your true self will spill out on this floor...for all to see.” 

Diana sucks harsh breaths through her teeth, letting her head fall back to the floor, looking up at the steepled ceiling because she can’t bear looking at the earnest concentration on his face any longer. _“Did you kill them…?”_

“Ahh,” he cuts the power to the gun off once more and leans back on one knee, admiring his work before setting the tattoo machine to the side and standing up with a liquid smoothness that belies his surety. “Perfect.”

John swaggers backwards down the aisle, keeps his eyes locked on her chest. He draws his hands out in a grand gesture, indicating the four hostages held at gunpoint behind and to either side of him. “Don’t worry, my dear,” he smiles warmly, “I keep my promises. Your friends are all here. And you will _all_ atone.”

Diana is grabbed from either side and hoisted to her feet, getting a clearer view of the scene laid out before her. Nick and Jerome are both shirtless while Kim and Mary May were seemingly allowed to keep theirs, though she can see the bloodstains dried on the fabric. John’s clearly marked them all. 

“Let’s begin!” John extends his hand in a flourish only to receive a book from one of his followers standing close by. 

He swivels and saunters to the front of the church while she gets dragged forward, meeting the eyes of each of her friends in turn, trying to channel how fucking _sorry_ she is about all of this, like somehow it’ll beam directly into their heads just from a look. 

John peers down at the book in his hands reverently before he turns and makes his way over to Jerome. He smacks what can only be the Book of Joseph against the pastor’s chest while his other hand slaps Jerome’s own bible to the floor with a loud and decisive clatter. 

“I thought some friendly faces might make _your_ Atonement easier,” he mutters, catching Diana’s eyes once more before giving her a harsh smile and grabbing the pastor by the back of the neck, forcing him to face Nick. 

Diana starts to struggle, because that’s what she always does.

John leans in close over Jerome’s shoulder. “Our devoted…”

Jerome’s eyes narrow. His mouth curls down into a sneer, and Diana watches as he and Nick share a look with each other. It’s obvious John is waiting for him to start repeating the sermon. 

“We are gathered here to bear witness,” John continues, side eyeing the pastor.

After another moment he lets his gaze drift upwards, obviously growing impatient at Jerome’s continued silence.

He sighs and backs off ever so slightly and nods to the Peggie just beside him. 

_“No-!”_ Diana jerks forward just as the cultist smacks Jerome hard on the head with the butt of the pistol he holds, sending the pastor toppling to his knees on the floor with a loud grunt of pain. 

_“You son of a bitch-!”_ Mary May breaks free from her captor, lunging at John like a wild animal.

And he just looks on - unperturbed, _bored_ even - taking a single step back as she is reined in, that same Peggie stepping around Jerome to bash her in the face with the same no-nonsense severity.

Kim makes a sound, almost shrinking back against the cultist holding her at gunpoint, her hands immediately going up over her stomach protectively. 

Diana’s gaze shifts to her and she gives the other woman a pleading look, begging her to keep quiet. Her anger boils up at such casual use of violence against them. Guns pointed at them from every direction, taking a fucking _pregnant woman and her husband_ hostage, forcing them all into this fucking mockery of a ceremony. For what? For _her?_

John chuckling makes anything she was about to say die in her throat. 

“Let’s try that again,” he says almost too lightheartedly, striding forward and grabbing Jerome roughly once more. “Our devoted, we are gathered here today to bear witness…”

Jerome clenches his jaw, finally parrots the words back to Nick. 

“To those willing to atone for their sins…”

“To those willing to atone for their sins,” the pastor continues through gritted teeth. 

“Will you, Nick Rye, place your hand upon the Word of Joseph?”

“Will you, Nick Rye-”

“No, fuck that,” Nick interrupts the pastor, puffing his wounded chest out even with a gun pointed at his head, fists clenching at his sides. “I ain’t ever givin’ in to that _psychopath-”_

John’s eyes narrow and he pushes Jerome to the side, takes a threatening step forward to deal with Nick directly. “Ahh, there it is… _greed.”_ He sticks his hands up, pinching forefingers and thumbs and drawing them apart in a condescending little flourish, his way of accentuating the ragged word scrawled on Nick’s chest. “Always thinking of yourself…”

Nick grimaces and starts rearing his head back, inhaling deeply.

 _“Nick!”_ Kim shouts from off to the side, drawing everyone’s attention. “Nick, baby, _don’t-”_

“Shut up,” the man standing behind Kim drawls, lifting his gun to push the barrel against the back of her head.

She clamps her mouth shut, whimpers, and suddenly her face contorts. She lets out a pained groan, hands flexing over her stomach. Her face has paled considerably and she looks like she wants to double over.

 _“Stop!”_ Diana thrashes again, zeroing in on Kim and the Peggie threatening her. Not now, _please_ not fucking _now._

_“I’ll do it,”_ she hisses, her gaze flicking back to John. She swallows, blinks fast a few times, biting back whatever petty, spiteful remark was about to leave her throat in favor of something that sounds more like surrender.

“I’ll do it—I’ll say it. Just—just stop pointing those _fucking guns,”_ she pleads, unable to stop her voice from cracking at the end. She clears her throat, glances back at Kim quickly before catching John’s eyes with her own. “Do not... _please_ don’t do what your brother did-”

John’s eyes narrow at the way she speaks. His attention draws away from Nick and he strides forward carefully. He casts his own quick glance back in Kim’s direction, gaze dropping to her protruding belly for only a moment before returning to Diana. 

He raises a hand, points an inked finger at her accusingly. “Aside from the fact that you know _nothing_ about my brother—saying ‘yes’ is not a _bargaining chip,_ Diana. Just because we...just because _you think you’re special,”_ he corrects himself, blue eyes boring into her, “that doesn’t mean you get to play your childish little games with me.” 

John glances back once more and gruffly nods his head to the side. The Peggie behind Kim shoves her forward, gun still pressed against the back of her head. 

_“It’s not a fucking game,”_ Diana hisses vehemently, her anxiety spiking as Kim lets out another stifled cry. “We all know _I'm_ the one you want. _Look at her!_ She needs a fucking _doctor-”_

The Peggie behind Kim finally seems to catch on to what’s happening, haltingly jerks the gun away from her as he looks to his herald for some kind of guidance. 

“What? Baby, what’s—are _you-?”_ Nick stammers, his own panic clearly setting in. 

Things are devolving quickly. Diana leans as far forward as she can in the grasp of the two still holding her, trying desperately to draw John’s attention back. “You let them go and I am _all yours_ \- that’s it, John - that’s the fucking _bargaining chip,_ you can take it or leave it-”

Both Jerome and Mary May’s attention shifts from Kim over to her. 

John angles his head, reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose and exhale a dramatic sigh.

Diana waits for his decision, her anxiety rising, eyes flicking back to Kim and then to Nick, who’s now fully struggling against the men holding him in place. 

_“Let me help my wife, Goddamnit-!”_

“I know this is what you want, John. _Don’t deny it,”_ Diana starts in again fervently. “You want me to say it willingly, and that is _exactly_ what I’m gonna do. All I ask is that you let them get to a _fucking doctor-”_

John’s eyes flick back to her. His mouth twitches. And then he spins on his heel, reaches out and yanks the heavy book from Jerome’s hands without even giving the pastor a second glance. 

He strides back, sticks the book out flat between them. 

Kim’s heavy, steady breathing becomes the only sound in the church for a few moments. It’s obvious she’s trying to do what she must have learned in a class or from a book; deep, controlled breaths designed to regulate focus and center the breather. “Deputy, don’t-”

“Kim— _Goddamnit, let me go!”_ Nick thrashes behind John, trying to throw all his weight into getting free of the men who hold him.

 _“Fuck’s sake,”_ John hisses, turning his head in their direction. “Just let him go, would you!? You all haven't forgotten how to use those guns you’re holding! _Shoot him_ if he tries anything,” he tells his men curtly. 

He turns back to Diana without another word, takes a half-step forward so that the length of that book is the only space left between them and looks directly into her eyes. 

Suddenly she barely registers Nick breaking free behind him, going to take Kim in his arms.

She barely registers Jerome and Mary May, eyes locked on the two of them in clear concern. 

_“Will you, Diana Evangeline Baker, place your hand upon the Word of Joseph and renounce your sins and admit your transgressions?”_

John’s voice is the only thing she hears. Having all of his attention on her so suddenly, so _completely,_ she finds herself having to fight to remember that it isn’t just the two of them in this church. 

She shivers at the realization that it feels as though she has very likely made a deal with the devil in exchange for her soul. But if it will keep the others free for that much longer…

“It’s just one word... _say it,”_ he mutters forcefully.

She wets her lips. Can’t help curling them downwards in some small form of defiance. “Let them go-”

_“After.”_

_“I don’t trust you,”_ she hisses back, gazing up at him with a severity to match what she sees in his own eyes. They are dancing around each other, toeing a very thin line around revealing too much of themselves. 

_“I have never lied to you,”_ he asserts gruffly, hovering even closer. “Despite what you have done, despite how you _deny,_ despite how you keep _running from this-”_

A painful cry snaps the tenuous thread between them. They both look over towards Nick and Kim. 

She _is_ doubled over now, one hand grasping at her stomach while the other clutches Nick’s with a grip that looks fit to bruise. 

The Peggies look around at each other, clearly at a loss as to what any of them are actually supposed to be _doing._

John huffs an irritated breath through his nose. He lets go of the book with one hand to reach up and smooth back his hair and then he turns to the man closest, the one who’d poked Diana’s nose back in the bunker. “You—take them outside, let them go.”

“But, John—what about bringing ‘em into the Project-?” 

“Are you _questioning me,_ brother!?” the herald barks, rounding fully on the man standing just to Diana’s left. “It’s clear by now that they are _not worth saving._ The deputy wants them free to suffer God’s wrath, then _that_ is what will be done. And then she will learn the cost of what it is she’s fighting for…” 

The man bows his head and nods, says nothing more before moving toward the couple and gesturing with his gun for them to get going. 

Nick tries to get Kim moving as steady and gently as he can, but even as she wants to, she seems to have trouble. 

John watches this interaction with mounting impatience. 

_“Well!? Help her!”_ he finally snaps at his henchman, as if the man is far too stupid to take the initiative to do it on his own.

Diana thinks he probably is.

He huffs out an almost belligerent sigh before getting in under Kim’s other shoulder and actually helping Nick walk her to the doors.

Diana meets Nick’s gaze briefly as they pass, sees the concern etched in his eyes and in the lines creasing his face but also the _relief._

This is right. This must be the right thing, the _only_ thing she can do. 

Despite what John said about God’s wrath, about bargaining, she can’t let him hurt these people any more than he already has. The only one fit for punishment is her. 

He finally turns his predatory gaze back as the doors of the church slam shut behind them. 

She feels like she can finally breathe just a little bit easier. Jerome and Mary May are still here, but they are both fit for fighting if it comes to that. Diana would prefer to have them released as well, obviously, but it’s impossible to tell how far John’s generosity might extend. 

The fact that he let the others go without more of a fight is...almost encouraging. That he’s willing to put Kim out of harm’s way, even as he couches the decision in threats about the Collapse; that counts for _something,_ doesn’t it? The memory of Holly still haunts her, reminds her of who it is she’s dealing with. How much of his erratic and unpredictable behavior can she reconcile before it drives her utterly insane? Why is she even _trying_ to reconcile it?

“Thank you...” 

John shakes his head, steps in close to her again. His eyes meet the other cultist still holding her and at his unspoken bidding the woman backs off a few steps, but keeps her gun at the ready.

“Some day…some day you are going to realize what I have just done deserves nothing even _remotely akin_ to gratitude. You’ve damned them. _I have damned them for you.”_

He thrusts the book out once more, narrowing his eyes down at her. “The Project is the only thing that could have saved them. And your _hubris_ still won’t let you see the truth—even as you’re practically _drowning_ in it. You still don’t think I _see you,_ but I do. You think you’re sacrificing yourself, but really—you’re sacrificing all of _them.”_

Diana can’t help sneering, her moment of genuine gratitude snuffed out by his unshakeable, _asinine_ dogma. Despite whatever she’d seen in the Bliss, she is still doggedly unwilling to take his words to heart. 

“What’s gonna happen if your brother is wrong? Have you _ever_ stopped to think about that?” she bristles. “You think you’re _cleansing people_ —but all you’re doing is beating them down until they can’t fight back— _torturing them! Doing exactly what your fucking parents did!”_

The Peggie standing behind her starts to look worried as Diana presses forward, practically hissing up at John with her teeth bared. All the Peggies are looking at them now. They don’t think anything of Jerome kneeling, reaching for the book still on the floor.

“What are you gonna do when _nothing happens_ and this whole thing gets out and blows up!? If you’re _lucky_ they will throw you all in prison for the rest of your _fucking lives-”_

John barks out a laugh, tilting his head curtly and staring her down, blue eyes practically seething with how his blood is up. He’s starting to forget himself, forget there are others watching. “Would you _miss me,_ dearest? Would you get up and plead your black little heart out before the judge to send me to a prison that _still offers conjugal visits-!?”_

_“GUN!”_

The shot rings out just as John is finishing his scathing retort, deafening with the church’s acoustics. 

Everything happens incredibly fast after that. 

Somehow Mary May has ended up with the pistol Jerome had stashed in the Bible safe. Her shot was meant for the back of John’s head, but the nearest cultist smashing into her at the last second made the shot go high.

John still ducks instinctively. 

Diana is startled out of the sheer speechless horror paralyzing her because of what he’d just said; startled even _more so_ because of the tattooed arm that strikes out and pulls her down to duck alongside him.

And then his people move in. 

The Peggies are all shouting over each other about getting John out of there. Diana gets jostled to the side, manhandled roughly, separated from him by his own people.

Jerome punches someone right between the eyes, sending them careening to the floor. He pulls a 9mm from the cultist’s hands, grabs Diana by one arm and shoves the gun into her other palm. 

_“God help us, I think that young man has finally lost his damn mind!”_ he yells over the commotion, stepping away from Diana to slam the Peggie on top of Mary May hard in the kidney, or maybe the spleen. Either way, it knocks the wind out of the cultist and allows him to pull the offending person off their comrade. 

_“We need to get after that crazy motherfucker!”_ Mary May lurches to her feet, points Jerome’s pistol at the Peggie wheezing on the floor and pulls the trigger. Then she whips her head toward the doors just as they slam shut, most of John’s retinue gone with him. 

Her gaze snaps to Diana. “I don’t know what the fuck that was all about— _hey!_ Are we goin’ after him or what!?” 

The deputy - after a prolonged bout of paralyzing high tension - finally realizes when her allies have not turned on her, that they think John Seed is _full of shit._

They’d lost themselves in the throes of what was very well ramping up to become a full-blown domestic dispute, and her friends think he was only _goading_ her; trying to rile her up by making nasty, false insinuations. 

She almost chokes over her own words, stumbles into step behind them as they quickly make for the doors. “I—no, _no. You two_ need to get the fuck out of here.”

 _“Like Hell!”_ Mary May spits as she puts out a hand, pausing before shoving one of the doors open. 

“Ladies—you know they’re going to be waiting for us outside,” Jerome warns them, taking up position in front of the other door.

Diana nods, her mind racing, but she knows one thing; neither of them can go with her after John. This is her fight now, not theirs. There are things that need to be _settled._ “Watch my back. I’ll follow them, you two...get across the river. Get to the jail - Whitehorse is there - there are plenty of people there who will follow you back to town.” 

Jerome frowns at her, wary of the idea of Diana chasing the Baptist by herself. “Are you _sure-?”_

Diana checks the magazine in the 9mm quickly before shouldering between them and shoving open the door, cutting off any further argument from the other two.


	24. Only You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only you can make all this change in me
> 
> For it's true, you are my destiny
> 
> When you hold my hand
> 
> I understand the magic that you do
> 
> You're my dream come true
> 
> My one and only you
> 
> \- The Platters, Only You

Diana can _just_ see a cult truck tearing off down the straightaway leading out of town. If she doesn’t get her ass in gear and catch up, she’ll lose them.

She runs for the nearest vehicle, a Jeep parked just up the street, dodging bullets from the retinue of Peggies that had been waiting in ambush outside the church. She has to trust in the assumption that Mary May and Jerome can take care of them, because she doesn’t have time. 

_“Get to the jail!”_ she reiterates earnestly before yanking the door open and clambering inside.

There are nine bullets left in the 9mm. She has to make them count.

She starts the Jeep and burns rubber peeling out from where it’s parked, taking off down the main drag of the once sleepy little town to chase after John Seed.

She doesn’t exactly _think_ as her foot presses down on the accelerator, taking the narrow country road at an exceedingly dangerous speed; she only sees flashes of images in her mind, only feels a distinct and painful wave of conflicting emotions.

What is she going to do if she catches up to them? What’s the end goal? His men won’t let her take him alive. She _should_ want to kill him for everything he’s done. And a part of her _does_. He is right about her, after all. Especially since going through whatever Jacob’s done to her, she barely gives a second thought to killing anymore. Out here in Hope County, it’s a thing that’s become almost second nature.

What is it about her? What is it that makes her so _fucking special?_ Between Joseph telling her she’s been given a gift from God, Jacob telling her she is nothing but a tool, Faith trying desperately to drug her into seeing the ‘truth,’ and John trying his damndest to pry all of her secrets from her - caught up so much in their little game that it’s seemingly become an obsession for him - it’s exactly like Joseph had said to her when she was back in that cage; she is a nobody, from nowhere, with _nothing_. What could they possibly want from her?

She doesn’t even realize she’s caught up until a bullet strikes just the right spot to take the driver’s side mirror clean off. It launches and bangs against the side of the Jeep, still attached by a single wire. It startles her back into reality and she swerves the wheel instinctively, lurching the Jeep to the left and into the opposite lane. 

Diana clenches her jaw, straightens the vehicle out as she punches the accelerator and comes up even with the truck’s bed. She glances to her right, levels the pistol at the rear left tire; thankfully the Jeep is topless, and she’s hoping if she can make the shot it’ll be enough to bring them to a stop. She looks to the road ahead briefly, tries to empty the air from her lungs, looks back and pulls the trigger. 

The truck’s engine revs loudly and it speeds up suddenly, veers to the left in front of her and crashes through a fence and into a huge field. Diana’s shot misses entirely and she yells a few choice curses, slamming the brakes when they cut in front of her and then yanking the steering wheel hard to the left a few seconds later to follow them.

She crashes through a drainage ditch so hard her teeth rattle and she nearly bites down into her tongue. She leans out the driver’s side, attempting to aim and steer simultaneously. Just as one of John’s cultists appears out the passenger window, she fires two more low shots and at least one of them hits its mark.

They are heading towards the tree line at the end of the field when the tire blows, sending the truck fishtailing through the high grass. It cuts sharply to the right and then to the left again before slamming into a tree and coming to a sudden, jarring stop with the bone-shattering sound of breaking glass and crumpling metal.

Diana slams on the brake and holds on as the Jeep starts swerving. It leans dangerously on only two tires for a moment, skidding through the grass before lurching back down and coming to a stop. She doesn’t even put it in park before she’s throwing open the door and running for John’s truck.

She sees the Peggie who’d been leaning out the passenger side first. He’s still there but his body’s folded down over the door now, dangling in an odd position. She just has time to think it looks like his neck snapped before the driver’s side door opens.

Diana brandishes the pistol, jogs around the back of the truck. When the driver comes into view she has only a moment to register the submachine gun shakily pointing up at her before she puts one heel down hard and pivots to throw herself back behind the bed. 

A series of shots ring out and she winces, listening to them chewing into the frame of the truck just beside her. She hears a door open on the passenger side, cranes her neck out just enough to see John slithering out from the rear cab.

“Oh _no,”_ she hisses, feeling like a fire-breathing dragon, maybe like Smaug from Tolkien’s epics. _“No you don’t, you fucking snake!”_

Diana grips the pistol with both hands and lunges out from behind the truck bed, placing a bullet neatly into the driver’s chest before he can even register that she’s back within range; he was half-dead anyway, face covered in blood from one or several deep lacerations on his head. She bolts past him, around the smoking, hissing, caved-in hood of the truck and spies John booking it off into the woods. 

She takes off after him, legs pumping, blood thundering in her ears. He is lean and fast, and she shouldn’t be surprised that he’s most likely unhurt; cowering in the back of that truck must have softened the blow of the crash. 

She extends the gun and fires a warning shot that goes wide, but she wasn’t exactly trying to hit him; shooting while running is a risky game, and she can’t take the time to line her shots up. There are only four bullets left now. All she needs is to startle him, make him lose some of his composure. 

He surprises her though, dives to the ground and immediately rolls onto his back, producing his revolver and pointing it in her direction. He fires a few shots and, though she hears them chewing through the branches of the trees well above her head, she instinctively dives to the ground. 

John sits up at attention, chest heaving from the exertion of running. He narrows his eyes, scrambles to his feet and takes a few cautious sideways steps towards her; he was sure he’d aimed high. He listens to her wheezing breath through her teeth, curled up on herself on the ground, and it is enough to make him think there’s a _chance_ she could have actually been hit.

He clutches the revolver at his side and stalks toward where she trembles, moaning low and quiet. “Are we finally ready to give up on this little game, _deputy!?_ We’ve got doctors, you know, despite my cutting your little friends loose. Just give it up, say yes and I’ll have a plane out here in two minutes ready to fly you back to the bunker.” 

She cries out and ducks her head, keeping up the show, watching where his feet move out of the corner of her eye. She’d dropped her 9mm when she hit the dirt, but now she has her hunting knife clutched tightly in one hand, pressed between her sweat-soaked body and the ground. He only needs to come a few steps closer...

John moves forward a step, waves the revolver almost wildly in front of himself. _“Well!?_ I know you by now, Diana! You may be petty, but you are far too _fucking prideful_ to let yourself die this way! _There is far too much wrath in you! Just...say...YES!”_

He finally loses enough of his composure to drop onto one knee, is just reaching out to roll her over when she strikes. 

Diana lets out a guttural scream, brandishing the knife and grabbing at his forearm with her free hand to lunge forward and pull him in close for the attack. 

John leans back at the same time and thrusts his own arm out, shoving her with the heel of his hand against her newest tattoo; sends her backwards quickly enough to knock her head against the tree she’d fallen next to. In her surprise, the arc of the knife comes up short and she only just manages to tear open a shallow wound across his chest, just below the crossed out _sloth._

He hisses and then starts _laughing_ as he scrambles to overpower her, crawling up over her legs to straddle her and keep her waist pinned to the ground. She’s in enough pain from him mashing his hand against her wound that he easily twists her wrist and forces her to drop the knife.

“You still think you can _trick me!?_ _I will not entertain your pathetic, tired attempts with a knife-!”_

“Had to do something...since you were running away from me... _like a fucking coward,”_ she grits out, flailing underneath him.

He barks out a humorless laugh, shifts his weight to better keep her pinned. “You do so love to test the limits of my generosity, Diana.” 

He leans down, slamming her wrist into the dirt, smirking that stupid smirk of his like he knows he’s already won. “I should put you down like the rabid animal you are, if I knew what was good for me...”

_“Then why fucking don’t y-!?”_

She doesn’t get to finish because he’s swallowing the last of her words, pushing his mouth down against hers in a punishing kiss. 

Her eyes widen and her brow knits in a show of impotent fury, and then, suddenly—suddenly, it’s not a fight anymore. 

Well, it _is,_ but something’s shifted. The air of fury and adrenaline surrounding them transmutes into something too much like desperation; they are black holes that have drifted far too close to one another in the vastness of space. The gravity is crushing. 

She feels a drop of his blood spatter onto her chest, and suddenly she lets go of the forearm she’d had hold of. She pushes the stupid sunglasses from his head and threads her fingers into his hair, bunching it into her fist and pushing her hips up into him shamelessly.

John angles his mouth away from her to hiss in a breath, brows knitting in predatory satisfaction. He knows the way she moves beneath him; oh, he knows it _very_ well. And he had fought the temptation at first, tried to atone for his sins in lonely hours by taking his knife to the _lust_ scarred just above his pelvis, but Joseph has always been right; the weight of his own sin is a cancer he has never quite been able to cut out completely. 

After all, he is a creature of carefully designed control; but such control cannot be maintained forever. When it breaks, as it does on occasion - more often than not, recently - it resembles nothing so much as a levee giving way beneath a torrential and devastating wave. 

This infuriating woman has taunted him with her secrets and her petulance, and she has yet to learn that _she is his_. His lust for her goes beyond physical attraction, beyond the delicious push and pull of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object; it has clawed its way into his very bones. It has dug in and continuously, unabashedly reinforced the idea that _she_ is his key to Eden. 

_“John. What the fuck is going on down there?”_

They are snapped out of the spell by Jacob’s voice coming from seemingly nowhere, laced thickly with static. 

John breaks away from her, still panting. He keeps her wrist pinned to the ground and hastily jams his revolver back into his waistband, switching it out for the radio attached to his belt. 

He keeps his eyes on her, silently daring her to try anything as he brings the CB to his lips and presses the talk button.

“Jacob—I’m a little busy right now-”

_“Just when I think I’ve finally taken care of our problem, do you know what a little birdie calls in to tell me?”_

John blinks, eyes narrowing at his brother’s slow and menacing tone. “What exactly do you mean by-?”

_“You’re striking deals with the enemy?”_ Jacob barrels over him, his voice getting louder. _“You’re letting prisoners go free!? You are_ failing _to do your duties, John—willfully or otherwise, it doesn’t make much difference anymore, does it?”_

John’s mouth hinges shut. His gaze wanders from Diana, who’s held just as entranced by what’s starting to sound very much like Jacob building up to some kind of a _threat._

_“I need you to be with us, John._ Joseph _needs you to be with us. And if you can’t make the choice on your own...well, we all have to make sacrifices.”_

He finally frees her hand, sits back on his heels above her, his face contorting into a mask of confusion and bewilderment. “Jacob-”

She’d laugh at the way he looks like a puppy that just got kicked—but even she recognizes the tension thickening the air around them. 

_“Listen to me very carefully, John. I need you to be_ strong.”

_“Jacob!?”_ He hisses into the radio, gripping it so hard his knuckles are turning white. 

No response comes back. 

“What the fuck was that-?”

His gaze flicks back down to her, offering no explanation, and certainly no reassurance. 

Suddenly, what sounds like a short guitar riff spills from the radio’s tinny little speaker. 

John grimaces, looking down at it disconcertedly.

_“Only youuuu...can make this world seem right...”_

Diana’s lips part. Her breath hitches suddenly, but not from any lingering traces of desire for the man still sitting on top of her. “No. No, no no…” 

_“Ooonly youuuu...can make the darkness bright…”_

“Turn it off,” she babbles fiercely, looking up at him with pupils blown wide all of a sudden. Her hand shoots up to grasp at his shirtsleeve, nails digging into the fabric roughly. “Turn it off, _turn it the fuck off!”_

_“Only you and you alone...can thrill me like you doo…”_

It takes John just a little too long to realize what’s going on. He knows about Jacob’s conditioning, certainly. But he’s never _witnessed_ the trials, the meticulously planned, Bliss-and-blood-fueled training regimes. Never actually seen how it all happens. 

Her eyes go eerily blank. Her face contorts into a snarl. And then she’s lunging up at him, not grasping desperately for help any longer; no, her hands, the only weapons she currently has available to her, are curling into claws and grasping for his fucking _throat._

He drops the radio in his haste to try and restrain her, the music still playing sweetly from it as it lands in the dirt beside them.

. . .

Diana dreams in splashes of red. Blood and fire. Acrid gun smoke and the ticking of invisible clocks. Gnashing teeth and bright blue eyes. 

She wakes into darkness with a gasp and a pained cry, wants to curl up on herself and realizes after a moment that she _can’t._

She can curl her legs up, but her arms are outstretched to either side and her wrists burn from what feel like...handcuffs. The metal rings dig into the tender flesh of her wrists as she struggles against them fruitlessly. “Wha-? _What the fuck-?”_

There is movement in the darkness off to her left and she startles, instinctively trying to scramble-shimmy her body away.

_“Stop,_ would you? It’s just me…” 

_“Just you!?”_ she croaks indignantly; though she _does_ stop, somehow relieved that it’s John’s voice coming at her from the darkness and not one of his brothers’. That almost makes her scared all over again.

A light suddenly bathes the room in a muted glow. Hardwood. So much hardwood. Though the wall to her right is full of large bay windows, curtains drawn over all of them. There’s a huge, stuffed bald eagle permanently about to take wing in the corner of the room, watching her through beady, lifeless eyes. 

She blinks, glances down. “Did—did you handcuff me to your fucking _bed!?”_ she mutters breathlessly.

John pulls a heavy wooden chair away from the wall, sits himself down with a grunt of pain. “Well, my dear, I’m not sure if you remember—but about,” he glances down, checks his watch casually, “four hours ago, you were very earnestly trying to tear my throat out with your fucking _teeth.”_

Diana swallows, vague memories swimming around the edges of her mind. 

“How’s that different from any other time?” she mutters a little caustically, letting her eyes drift toward the high ceiling and the open beams running across it. 

John huffs air through his nose; almost a laugh. “Oh, it was very different. Despite the number of times you’ve tried to kill me, _this time_ was... _real.”_

He grabs something from the little bedside table and leans forward in the chair.

She flinches and freezes, dishwater eyes locking on him. 

John pauses almost imperceptibly before taking hold of the cuff attached to the post of the headboard closest to him, angling it so that he can slip the little key into the lock and free her hand. 

“Anyway, you should be thankful. I could have had you thrown into a cell in the basement,” he says almost casually, glancing down at her before returning to his seat. “But I thought this might be a bit more...hospitable.” 

She finally gets a good look at him as she curls her arm down against her chest almost protectively. He’s shirtless, clothed only in his jeans. There’s a bandage covering his neck where it curves into the shoulder, and she can see a few thin red scratches sticking out from underneath it. There are other scratches and half-moon shapes, deep ones and shallower ones, scattered across his chest and arms. He’s got a split lip and some cuts on his face, though it’s obvious he’s cleaned them up since he brought her back here. 

She tries to wet her lips, but her mouth is so dry. She wants to ask about Jacob. Wants to ask how John managed to subdue her, _why_ he didn’t just kill her and be done with it; his entire torso looks like a goddamn Pollock painting between all his own tattoos and scars and the fresh, reddened wounds she’d left on him. She wants to ask why he’s so concerned with being _hospitable_ all of a sudden.

“Are you gonna unlock the other hand, or was it just the one? As a little treat?” she asks almost scornfully, though there is a hint of anxiety behind it. 

John leans back in the chair and lets his hands rest on his thighs, considering her for a few moments. “If I unlock the other one, you’re going to bolt. Straight through one of these windows, no less, like a reckless little idiot. And that’s not what I want.” 

Diana curls her lip, angles her head away from him. “I don’t care what you want…”

He narrows his eyes at her. A great many things are going unspoken. He’s been wrestling with what happened for hours now, turning it over in his mind until it became well-polished, though no less worrisome. 

Someone in his flock was _keeping tabs on him._

And Jacob, ever the soldier, ever the controlling, obtuse older brother, had decided to put John through his own little trial. Obviously, he must have hoped John would end her life. Be strong, make the right choice, make the _sacrifice._

And he hadn’t. 

He looks down at the evil little woman handcuffed to his bed, weighs the consequences of his own actions. “I want you to rest.”

Her lip trembles almost imperceptibly before turning down into a miserable grimace. She stares resolutely up at the ceiling even as traitorous tears start to well in the corners of her eyes. _“Don’t…”_

John’s gaze turns sharp. The muscles in his jaw work for a moment. Then he picks up a glass full of water from the little bedside table, holds it out towards her. “Don’t cry. You’re already dehydrated.” 

He says it so _clinically,_ so dry and matter-of-fact that she almost wants to laugh. She half-rolls and reaches out and _slaps_ the glass from his hand instead, sending water spilling across the edge of the bed and the floor. _“I don’t want it. I don’t want your fucking kindness, asshole.”_

John stills for a few moments, his hand flexing around nothing. He sighs heavily, reaches down and picks the glass up off the expensive Persian rug. Stares at it for a few moments before finally looking up and gracing her with a strained smile. _“Fine._ The kindness is only conditional, anyway, if that makes you feel better.” 

“Conditional upon _what?”_ she sneers, fixing him with a venomous glare..

“Jacob—you were with him before you came back to the valley, weren’t you?” 

She angles her head, rolls her eyes about a mile. Though, she is relieved. She thought his conditions would apply to something other than an impromptu interrogation. _“No,_ John—I was at the marina having a fucking pool party with Adelaide.”

He remains remarkably quiet for a time, considering the glass in his hand before reaching over and carefully placing it back on the table. 

She gets the brief and overwhelming feeling that he _wants_ to hurl it across the room, watch it shatter to pieces. 

“How long?” 

_“Long enough.”_

“Did he say anything...about me?” 

Diana rolls her eyes back to look at him, scoffs and fixes him with the absolute smuggest expression she can muster. “You sound like a thirteen year old whose first boyfriend just broke up with her.” 

He slams his palm down on the little table hard enough to almost send that glass hurtling back to the floor. _“Did he fucking say anything!?”_

He watches her flinch again at the outburst, his ire sparking when she all but clams up. That childish defiance is back in her eyes, and he simply does not understand how she _doesn’t get it._

“Whatever passes for a brain in that head of yours must still be scrambled, otherwise you’d understand how serious this is for _both of us,”_ he seethes, clenching his fist where it still rests on the little table. “Jacob’s intention was for me to _put you down,_ and in case you haven’t noticed, _I didn’t.”_

“That sounds a lot like a _you_ problem-”

_“Do you have_ any idea _what will happen to me!? To us!? To every one of your little sinner friends!?”_

She blinks, tensing again; he’s practically yelling, though she wouldn’t be surprised if he has every room in the ranch soundproofed. His grip on his own self-control is tenuous at best, though, and she realizes very quickly that she can’t keep acting like a brat for much longer. 

John leans forward, eyes bright and shining almost wildly in the dim light of the table lamp. “It’s obvious now my brothers don’t understand; _Joseph_ doesn’t understand his own _fucking visions,”_ he practically raves, reaching up to tap a finger toward his temple. 

“They don’t think you’re worth saving anymore, Diana. I have bent myself over _backwards_ trying to live up to their expectations, and then _you_ come along with all of your—your,” he actually sputters, extending his hand out toward her in an evocative and flustered gesture. 

In lieu of any meaningful descriptors, he only huffs out a frustrated breath and grunts, clawing his hand into a fist. “And I gave him _everything!_ Money, connections, all this _land_ —I made sure we were fucking _protected!_ And he tells me _‘you have to love them, John!’_ He tells me after all of that - after _everything_ I’ve done - that _you, of all fucking people, are my only key to Eden!_ And just when I _finally_ put the pieces together—when I finally realize the reason God put you here was to _be by my fucking side-”_

_“He told me you were losing sight of what’s important,”_ she finally mutters, quickly and forcefully, unwilling to listen to his psycho-babble bullshit about God’s plan for them. What he’d said the first time they had sex hasn’t ever left her mind; no, it’s only sat heavy, weighing her down every time she’s given in to the strange compulsion that draws her close to him. 

She does not like dwelling on the fact that he seems so strangely obsessed with her, will _never_ admit that somewhere deep down it excites her almost as much as it horrifies her. She does not enjoy feeling like she deserves his hands around her throat, and yet she craves it all the same. No, she doesn’t need him telling her that it’s all part of God’s plan _on top_ of that.

She grits her teeth as he finally shuts up, looking at her like she just slapped him in the face instead of uttering a few words. “He said you still act like a kid—messing with things you shouldn’t…”

John’s tongue runs across his lower lip. He looks away from her and leans back in the chair suddenly, all but deflating. 

“And Joseph, he was there, that’s—that’s when I heard what he did to his…” She doesn’t finish that particular thought, grimacing and shaking her head instead. “He told me _I_ was the one playing games with _you._ Fucking lunatic...” 

John’s eyes flick back to her from some distant point and his mouth curls into a dangerous frown. 

She swallows thickly, her mind finally clicking all those little pieces into place. Waking up in a pile of corpses; Jacob on the radio, admitting he’d thought he’d ‘solved their problem.’ 

She lets her head drop back against one of John’s pillows, looks up at the ceiling almost dazed. _“Fuck._ They really are trying to get rid of me…” 

John only sneers. _“I told you._ If we fail to bring you into the Project to help prepare and shepherd the flock toward the Collapse, then you are simply the _harbinger._ You’ve ushered it in, but if you are unwilling to understand your own part in it, then, according to Joseph, there is _no use for you.”_

John stands up then, looking down at Diana with a stony, far-off expression that sends a shiver of unease through her. 

“I would like you to think about that tonight. I imagine this is the first real bed you’ve slept in since you came to arrest my brother - and it is _very_ comfortable - so I want you to take this time to consider what it is I’ve now risked my own life trying to offer you, Diana.”

His words seem to weigh so much heavier now, considering what it was she could have done to him under the influence of that goddamned song. Jacob really had put him through a trial. And for all intents and purposes, he had failed.

“Sweet dreams, little wrath,” he mutters darkly before turning away from her to leave the room. And even though she is still handcuffed to the bed, she hears a lock clicking into place once he’s shut the door.


	25. Magic Moments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Magic, magic, magic, magic
> 
> This magic moment, so different and so new
> 
> Was like any other until I kissed you
> 
> And then it happened, it took me by surprise
> 
> I knew that you felt it too, by the look in your eyes
> 
> -The Drifters, This Magic Moment

Diana wakes to the smell of food. It’s got her mouth watering—well, watering as much as it can, what with her being so dehydrated. It’s breakfast she smells, and it draws her eyes open like some kind of magic incantation.

John is there, sitting in that same wooden chair, except he’s wearing more clothes this morning. A simple black t-shirt covers most of the marks she left on him.

They eye each other uncomfortably as she flexes the hand still cuffed to the bedpost, trying to wake up the deadened limb before pushing herself up with the other hand so that she can sit back against the headboard. 

“Cross your legs.” 

She blinks, furrowing her brows at him warily.

He stands, picks up the tray of food he’d sat on the bedside table and leans down over her, indicating her outstretched limbs with a curt nod of his chin. 

“You’re going to eat and then you’re going to take a shower,” he commands as she does what she’s told and he rests the tray on her lap. “I’ve already decided to burn the bedsheets and flip the mattress, but I’d still appreciate it if you could _try_ to keep some semblance of manners while you eat.”

She angles her head. For a second she entertains the idea of upturning the tray right into his smug fucking face. But she’s far too hungry for that. She snatches up the toast that looks like it’s cut from a loaf of artisanal bread, regards him with a sharp, syrupy smile instead. _“I love you too, John.”_

He sneers down at her and takes a step back. Reaches out and moves a tall glass of orange juice closer to her edge of the little table. 

She stuffs the rest of the toast into her mouth in another bite and a half, eyes the omelette on the plate next. The one time she’s thankful to be left handed—she can actually _use_ the spoon he’d so graciously provided since her right hand is the one still cuffed to the bedpost. 

She holds up the utensil, looks over at him smugly. “Really?” 

He angles his head. “Forgive me. I had to consider that a fork might very well be used as a _shiv_ in your delicate grasp, my dear.” 

Diana snorts contemptuously and attacks the omelette, showing him just what can be accomplished with a spoon. It’s not much, but it makes her feel a _little_ better.

John watches her eat with the same clinical interest an entomologist might have for a particularly fascinating insect. 

She drops the spoon a minute later and reaches over for the juice, swallowing down half of it in big gulps before catching sight of him just standing there. She lowers the glass, exhales deeply and side eyes him from under her thick lashes. _“What.”_

John simply shakes his head, regards her with an almost cruel smile. “You wouldn’t even take water last night. You’re as vicious as a rabid animal...one decent night’s sleep and now you’re _eating_ like one as well.”

She shows him an ugly, toothy grin before turning back to the tray. “Your brother fucking _starved me_. Uncuff me and my disgusting table manners won’t be your problem anymore, rich boy,” she mutters before stuffing an apple slice into her mouth. 

John barks out a mirthless laugh, shaking his head and reaching up to scrub a hand down over his beard. “Fuck’s sake,” he sighs, letting his gaze drift to the ceiling. “I thought God saw fit to test me in the past, but you…” 

He chuckles darkly, lowers his gaze and points a finger at her. _“You_ are the most frustrating test yet.”

“I am a _human being,_ asshole,” she mutters venomously around another mouthful of omelet. “One you happen to have kidnapped. And possibly committed war crimes against. Definitely _something_ that breaks the Geneva Convention…” 

He is suddenly right up in her face, leaning down over the bed with one hand gripping the headboard beside her tightly. “How many times do I have to tell you this isn’t a _fucking joke!?_ I’m glad you’re feeling well enough to make your spiteful little quips and insults, but as it stands, _deputy,_ there are only two options left for you.”

She pauses in the middle of chewing, swallows hard at the ire that’s risen up in him once more.

Why does she do this? Why does she provoke him when she’s seen firsthand how utterly dangerous he is? 

“Confess and atone. _Immediately._ Let me cleanse you and keep you _safe_ so that you can be at my side to usher in the Collapse.”

Diana cringes, peering over at him warily. “And what’s the other option?” she utters, quiet all of a sudden. 

“Oh, come now—I think it’s fairly obvious at this point. The other option is _death,”_ he replies pointedly, slowly, leaning in close beside her. “If you run from me again, we will _both_ face dire consequences, Diana. _You won’t even be a martyr because there will be no one left to remember you…”_

She closes her eyes briefly against the words muttered so close to her ear. What a phenomenal fucking mess it is she’s gotten herself into. She finds herself believing the threats he whispers; knows now that Joseph and the others will not hesitate any longer to dispose of her or _any_ of the Resistance. 

“Are you done?” 

Diana blinks, confused. 

John shifts, grabbing the edge of the tray. 

She nods almost meekly, her appetite suddenly snuffed out. She stares ahead for a moment as he removes the food and sets it aside. “If...if I do say yes—would your siblings let their hostages go? Like you did?” 

“No,” John replies simply as he makes his way around the large bed, fishing in one pocket for something. “They’ll be converted - _saved_ \- one way or another—or they will be killed. What I did in that church was allow you to determine the worst possible fate for the Ryes...and their offspring. It was a moment of weakness—one that will not be repeated.” 

He produces a small key and unlocks her other hand, watches with furrowed brows as she slowly lowers her arm to cradle it against her chest. “Without the Project’s guidance, the Collapse will destroy them, along with everything else. It will be a fate worse than any death we could deal out. And I did that for _you.”_

He reaches back and pulls his revolver from his waistband, wagging it pointedly in front of her to show that she isn’t ‘free’ just yet. “Up.”

Diana grimaces. Despite the fact that she _does_ feel better after sleeping in a real bed and being given real food and something to drink, she doesn’t know what to do about these convoluted moral hoops she’s suddenly being forced to debate jumping through. 

“If no one cares about keeping me alive anymore - and one of your own people was spying on you - why did you bring me back _here?_ ” she asks, trying to fit some of the loose pieces together as she cautiously slides from the bed and stands up. Is John really that delusional that he’d seemingly risk his own life just to keep her alive? Because of his _faith?_

“After you tore through here on your little _rampage,_ I had my most trusted Chosen brought in to guard this place. Not a one of them would ever dare to do such a thing. And not a one of them will breathe a word that I’ve had you convalescing here instead of coaxing confessions out of you up at Black Horse.” 

He nudges her with the barrel of the gun to get her moving before stuffing it back into his waistband. 

“And why _haven’t_ you done that…?” she asks almost cautiously as they pause before the bedroom door. 

He reaches around her to turn the knob and push it open, places that hand on her shoulder to guide her out into the hallway. 

“I am _trying_ to show you...what things could be like. If you stopped _fighting_ so hard. If you released all that ugliness inside of you instead of clinging to it like a hopeless _child,”_ he says as they move down the hall toward the only other door before the stairwell. 

Her fight reflex very nearly kicks in. She doesn’t like how gentle this feels, despite the handcuffs and the threat of the revolver he always carries. She doesn’t trust this unbidden, vague promise of tenderness in some insane apocalyptic future. She almost wants to laugh.

“You’re one to talk,” she snaps back harshly, stopping in her tracks as he opens the door to what’s obviously the master bathroom. “You still think you’re _special?_ You think you’re exempt from justice just because your brother told you you were _chosen?”_

She turns to face him suddenly, jabs a finger roughly into his chest. “You are a monster hiding behind what you think is some kind of righteous crusade. Some kind of fucking _manifest destiny._ And you’re a _hypocrite._ You think my brains were too fucking scrambled to remember how _pissed off_ you were at your own precious brothers last night!?”

John’s mouth curls into a snarl and he snatches up her wrist, shoves his way in through the doorframe and drags her into the large bathroom before slamming the door behind them. 

“You think you don’t act just as fucking childish!?” she barrels on, yanking her wrist from his grasp, unwilling to let him get a word in edgewise. “Who are you, _really?_ Without all the bullshit mumbo-jumbo? What’s left if you strip away all of _Joseph’s rhetoric?_ A little boy, _shielding himself_ with pain!? Wrath, envy, fucking _despair?_ No matter how deeply you bury it, you _are_ what you’re trying to destroy, John. You judge the weight of other people’s sins without even being able to fucking balance your own!”

She takes a step forward to shove him in the chest, nearly losing herself in her anger. She’s angry at him for his pathetic allusions to her becoming some kind of dainty little post-apocalypse _housewife_ when he knows nothing of the sort could ever happen. He knows what he is; and he knows a good deal more than he should about what _she_ is. She is even angrier at herself for allowing him to worm his way under her skin. 

John reaches up and pins her hands to his chest, using her own momentum to yank her in close as he plants one foot back to steady himself. “You’re trying very hard to make me lose my patience, aren’t you, you _little wretch!?_ You want to know what l was like before _Joseph’s rhetoric!?”_

He pushes her away roughly, half-turns and reaches up to yank the T-shirt over his shoulders. Myriads of what can only be described as _whipping scars_ zig-zag across the expanse of his back. Some have been marked over by the _wrath_ carved across his shoulder blades and a large Eden’s Gate cross tattooed in the middle, the same as the one Joseph sports so proudly. But those scars are everywhere; long and short lash marks, his entire back a canvas of razed skin. She has no idea how she didn’t see it last night. 

_“It started with my father, but the Duncans apparently saw fit to continue the tradition. For the first part of my life all I_ had _were my brothers! And then my teachers saw Old Man Seed’s belt marks on my back and pretty soon after I didn’t even have_ them,” he growls, tossing the shirt away and turning back to face her. _“All I had for_ years _were those pharisaic fucking monsters, parading around like good, honest folk—and the demons they were convinced were crawling around inside me!”_

Diana steadies herself against the sink, watching him owlishly. “You do have demons crawling around inside you,” she mutters.

She actually _wants_ to see it again. Wants to ask him to turn back around so she can drink her fill of the pain that shaped him. It only seems fair. Though, in truth, he’s only skimmed the surface of hers; hasn’t dipped his hands in fully yet. She focuses instead on the wound near the base of his neck, the one that had been covered up by a bandage the night before. A series of dark purple and wine-colored bruises, broken blood vessels in the shape of _teeth._ She’d apparently bitten him while under the influence of that song, _hard._

His eyes flash like a knife at her quiet remark, drawing her attention back. “Demons do have a tendency to recognize their own, don’t they? Pity you never met me back then—I was _full of them_ before Joseph came to me,” he mutters darkly.

She shakes her head, bewildered by him, still seeing all those scars in her mind’s eye. “How can you separate what they did to you from what you're doing to people now? _It’s the same exact thing-!”_

“What I do transcends _anything_ those charlatans put me through! This,” he says, taking a step forward, wrapping his fist into the collar of her grimy t-shirt and yanking it down to expose her wrath. “This is a _gift,_ Diana— _not a punishment!_ And once you confess, once you realize how _transformative_ the process of Atonement truly is, once you’ve found your _courage,_ opened your _heart_ —then you’ll see. Then you’ll _believe.”_

She reaches up to grab his wrist firmly, making sure that hand stays well away from the angry, raw skin on her chest. It feels hot, burnt almost; which is a feeling she remembers well from receiving the tattoos she’d actually _wanted._ But this time, that scorching sensation makes her think of nothing so much as being branded by a devil out of some Puritanical legend. 

“There is nothing _to_ believe,” she spits back, bravely staring him down. “The Collapse _isn’t fucking coming,_ John! Remember Y2K? 2012!? Fucking _Waco!?_ Whatever happens, _whenever_ it happens - whether we sink into the ocean or get blown to shit by an asteroid or blow each other to shit with our own fucking bombs - _it won’t be an act of God!”_

John’s lip curls and he pulls her just a little closer by her shirt, his voice becoming oily smooth. _“Bombs?_ Isn’t that how you saw it in the Bliss? Doesn’t that seem a bit coincidental…?” 

Diana scoffs. _“Don’t fucking patronize me!_ I know how _drugs work._ Your brother wasn’t showing me some kind of divine prophecy, he was being a fucking snake oil salesman and working me up to conjuring my own version of whatever the stupid apocalypse might be! I’ve been goddamn terrified of getting nuked ever since I read _Swan Song_ back in fucking juvie! Of _course_ that’s what I saw!” 

John’s eyes search her own for a few lingering moments and she senses his fingers tighten around the fabric of her shirt, tugging it just a little further; she isn’t sure if he’s going to kiss her or strangle her, but she gets the distinct impression he wants to do _something._

He doesn’t do either. 

Something shifts behind his gaze once more and he inhales deeply, uncurls his hand from her shirt and lets her go. 

“Get undressed. I want you to get cleaned up. You’ve been marinating in filth and gore for who knows how long,” he says contemptuously, turning away from her to slide open the shower door. The shower itself looks to be a massive tiled thing, almost a whole other room on its own. 

She blinks, narrowing her eyes at his back. He’s still got that gun shoved in his waistband, but she can’t take her eyes off those scars now that they’re visible to her again. She wonders suddenly what _he_ might have been like, had his life turned out different; if the random chaos of the universe hadn’t sent him from the arms of one set of fanatical zealots straight into another. 

“You can thank your brother for _that,_ too. And if I did—what the hell am I supposed to put on after?” Diana asks, her own tone becoming contemptuous. She folds her arms and leans back against the large countertop. “Every time I manage to find a change of clothes out here one of _you_ always swoops in, takes all my shit and leaves me for dead with some new, exciting trauma to work through.”

He casts a sideways glance over his shoulder as he reaches out to turn on the water. “Could you - perhaps, if it’s not too much trouble - stop being such a miserable _bitch_ for just a little while?” he asks, apparently impatient for her to start _appreciating_ his hospitality. 

Diana blinks. 

And then she starts to laugh.

And it _hurts._ It hurts her chest and her back and the back of her head - which seems weird - and she thinks maybe that crash up in the Whitetails might’ve bruised a few of her ribs too, because, _wow._

But she can’t stop for a full minute, until she finally reins herself in enough to wheeze out a response, pushing herself away from the counter. 

“I’m sorry—it’s just - _Jesus_ \- you’ve kidnapped me, _branded me,_ tried to have me _murdered_ multiple times...terrorized my friends, shot your own ex-lover right in front of me...um,” she giggles again a little helplessly. “Your fucking cuckoo-Alice-in-Wonderland _not-sister_ tried to overdose me on her super-drugs, and, uh...oh yeah, G.I. Jake the fucking nightmare up north has been trying to _MK-Ultra_ my ass, because, apparently, just having a goddamn doomsday cult isn’t enough for you _fucking freaks,”_ she babbles in between more fits of laughter and a few pained coughs.

He’s turned around by now, the water cascading down noisily behind him; watches this episode silently with a scowl on his face.

“I think I’ve more than earned the right to be a miserable fucking bitch, John,” she ends caustically.

He sighs, leveling her with the thinnest smile she thinks she’s ever seen. “I really am growing tired of having to threaten you,” he says as he retrieves the gun once more. “Of _arguing with you._ You do realize almost every single event you just described could have very easily been avoided…?”

Diana frowns, instantly thinking of Holly again with the way he levels the revolver at her. Foolish, really, having to be threatened to take a goddamn _shower._ But she doesn’t _need_ what that might lead to. _Want_ is another question entirely; the wanting of him - however much it plagues what sensibilities she has left - is a persistent, nagging specter she cannot seem to banish. 

The frown deepens into a petulant grimace. She rolls her eyes, sucks her teeth and finally proceeds to do as she’s been told. She shucks the t-shirt off over her head, stiffened with old blood and river water, and then peels off her jeans. Makes a point not to look back at him while she disrobes. She’d rather not know if his own eyes are crawling all over her body, bruised and battered as it is. 

She unhooks her bra last, letting it drop to the floor with the rest of her things before finally looking up. He’s moved to the side of the open stall door, arms folded with the gun only loosely held now. She has a distinct inkling he never would have shot her, but the memory of Holly will never let her be fully sure. 

They lock eyes for a moment and he only nods his head to the side. She sneers, defiant still, but makes her way past him; pauses briefly at the threshold before stepping into the shower and reaching back to slide the door shut behind her. 

She exhales a heavy breath when the steam envelops her, actually moans involuntarily when she moves herself underneath the water. She has to place her back toward the stream, wary of letting the _wrath_ on her chest get soaked; it’s still too fresh to be saturated safely. 

It’s been at least a week since she had a real shower; some time back at the jail. But she has to admit begrudgingly that it feels fucking amazing. 

John scoffs softly from the other side of the door when he hears her and she can only imagine the smug look that must be plastered on his face. _Damn him and this stupid palatial lodge and its incredible water pressure._

“Tell me, Diana,” he begins slowly from the other side of the door, “why is it that neither of us have been able to - how should I put this - _fulfill_ other people’s expectations of us?”

Her brows furrow and she angles her head towards the door at his question. 

“Forgive me for being blunt—but I think it’s about time we had a serious chat regarding the certain unexpected direction this relationship of ours has taken…”

She blinks and scoffs incredulously, reaching up to slick back her hair. “There is no relationship to _chat about-”_

_“Then why is it,”_ he enunciates sharply, cutting in over her, “every time we meet I see this infuriating little _spark_ in those dull, dead eyes of yours. Why do I get the distinct impression that whenever we engage in this little dance, it’s the only time you ever actually feel _alive?”_

She stares hard at the tiled wall in front of her, her hands frozen, tangled between the slick strands of her hair. “Maybe because every time we meet I’m fighting for my _fucking life…”_

She notices movement in her peripheral and the door slides open a minute later. She pointedly refuses to look over.

“Why is it I lose myself so easily looking into the void when it’s you I see looking back? _Why is it_ I cannot seem to bring you to atone—nor can I seem to _get rid of you?”_

His voice is low now that he’s in here with her. The door slides shut once more and she feels him moving behind her, blocking the water from hitting her back. Those words reach in and stroke something dark and volatile within her, something she cannot let him see. 

She feels his fingers run over the _pride_ he’d carved across her shoulder blades, feels them drag across every bump and scab that’s cropped up in the wake of his infernal tools. It already itches, but his touch heightens the sensation, makes her muscles tense underneath.

“Whatever this is, it is affecting us both,” he says, low and close to her ear as he moves his hand to wrap it over her shoulder where it meets her neck. “You can’t deny it, can’t shut out the truth of it, despite all your worthless efforts. You’re as helpless to it as I am...aren’t you? These feelings, this rage—this _lust._ It eats at you, just as it eats at me…”

Diana steels herself against him, her whole body stiffening; frozen all of a sudden, though the water cascading down is hot. _“Whatever this is?_ Is called _hate sex,_ John, and rage and lust are the only two feelings that will _ever_ be involved. And any way you look at it, it’s always going to be a _goddamn mistake,”_ she grits out, staring pointedly down at the floor. 

“Oh, stop _deflecting,”_ he replies pointedly, squeezing her shoulder. “Hate sex was the only kind I ever had for a _very_ long time. You know as well as I do that this is different.”

He squeezes her shoulder once more and slips his other hand easily around her arm, urging her to turn and face him. “Turn around and look at me.”

Diana huffs impudently, finally turns at his insistence. She tries to take a step back as she does so, but he keeps her right there so she only levels him with a wary gaze.

“How does it make you feel knowing you could have killed me yesterday?” 

She blinks, taken aback by the sudden seriousness of his tone. 

“And don’t lie. I’ll know if you’re lying.” 

“I…”

He lets his hand slip from her arm, reaches up to point a finger toward the angry bite marks on his shoulder. “If you’d actually gotten to my _throat_ \- if I hadn’t knocked you out - there’s a very good chance you could have accomplished the task.” 

His eyes darken, shadows shifting behind them, that cutting glint she’s become so familiar with settling back into his gaze. “Jacob gave me a choice; he wanted me to make a _sacrifice_. And I did—I made my choice and I very well could have sacrificed _everything-”_

John is interrupted suddenly by a loud rapping coming from outside. They both turn their heads, startled out of the air of intensity that had begun to blanket them at his forcing the discussion of what exactly they are to each other. 

_“John, sir? Sorry - sorry to interrupt - but the Father—he just showed up downstairs-”_

_“Fuck,”_ John mutters. He closes his eyes briefly, reaches up and scrubs a hand down over his face in clear exasperation. 

“I’ll be there in a few minutes!” he replies much louder, so that the man outside the bathroom can hear him over the sound of the shower. 

Turning back to Diana, he levels her with an exceedingly earnest look, his voice lowering once more so that only she will hear it. “Finish up in here. I’m going to tell him you’re ready for Atonement, because when you’re done—you’re going to have to be. There’s a bathrobe hanging up on the door. I’ll have someone wash your clothes in the meantime.” 

She blinks, shakes her head. _“What!? John-!?”_

He curls a hand around the back of her neck and pulls her close, kisses her like he suddenly _means it._ It’s enough to shut her up, leave her mind grasping at straws with how fast everything is coming to a head. 

“Don’t be scared,” he says gruffly, pressing his forehead to hers. “We both knew this was how it had to end. So that you can begin again.” 

He leaves her then with one last lingering glance before he slides the stall door shut between them, steeling himself for the inevitable act of pleading forgiveness from his brother for his transgressions.


	26. Smash the Control Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So waterboard the kids for fun
> 
> It's all the rage
> 
> And play born-again American
> 
> Resistance is the game
> 
> Smash the control machine!
> 
> -Otep, Smash The Control Machine

“Diana?” John calls as he makes his way back upstairs, some spare clothes he’d pilfered from a supply crate draped over his arm. Other than that bathrobe, she certainly isn’t going to touch any of his things. “I hope you've managed to put some of your fears to rest, my dear…”

The bathroom door is ajar, and no acerbic response returns to him from the other side of it. That makes him pause, quirking an eyebrow as he pokes his head in to peer around the room. The shower is still running, and the glass sliding door is open. 

The pile of dingy rags she’d been wearing is gone. 

John nearly chokes on his own spit, curses and spins on his heel back into the hallway, heading for his bedroom. Maybe she’d gone there to change and one of his men had already collected her things. Just forgot to turn the fucking shower off in the meantime…

He lets out a strangled laugh as he pushes open the door to his room; he already knows what to expect. The first thing he sees is a heavy curtain over one of the bay windows drawn to the side, letting a slice of late-morning light in to blaze a path across the floor. 

But she would have noticed quickly the windows are barred, protecting his home from any filthy sinners that should ever try to break in if the grounds were left unpatrolled. He grits his teeth, drops the clothes on the floor and spins again, back out into the hallway, to the third and last door that opens out to the second floor balcony. And it is, in fact, _open_. 

He shoulders his way through it and out to the banister, placing his hands on it as he looks all around. _“Diana!?”_

A few men down below halt in their rounds, glancing up at the sudden outburst. 

John’s mouth curls down, his knuckles whitening around the smooth wood. 

_“Where...is...the deputy!?”_

. . .

“So, uh...you and the little dude are still gearin’ up to try and blow this popsicle stand pretty soon?” 

Nora looks up from the maps she’s been poring over, locking eyes with Sharky across the table. “Yeah. In about a week if all goes well. If we don’t find the deputy by then, I...well, the least I can do is make sure this story goes viral. Make sure the right people hear about what’s happening…” 

She sighs and takes a seat in the rickety old swivel chair, reaches up to scrub her hands down over her face. It’s just the two of them down in the cell block-slash-command center; everyone else is upstairs, either grabbing lunch from the caf or keeping watch out on the walls. 

Sharky fiddles with a pen he picked up, taps it against the edge of the table a few times. He purses his lips for a moment, debating whether or not to try for a kickass drum solo. Hard to do with only one pen, though. “Yeah...I sure hope old Johnny didn’t manage to sink his claws into her, but...we ain’t heard nothin’ since Mary May and Jerome showed up-“

Sharky is interrupted by a clamor coming from upstairs. The door to the cell block bangs open and a scattering of raised voices make themselves heard blending in with a crowd of footsteps moving along the catwalk. 

They both look up to see the deputy herself, flanked on all sides by their comrades. 

“Christ, Baker, would you tell us what the hell happened?” Whitehorse admonishes brusquely, keeping pace alongside her with Grace and the aforementioned Jerome and Mary May close behind. Hudson and Tracey Lader make up the tail-end of the group. 

_“Nothing happened!”_

“Give her a little space, sheriff,” Pastor Jerome asserts, trying heroically to spare Diana some of the onslaught as they round the corner and descend the stairs.

“I’ll do no such thing, Pastor,” Whitehorse replies gruffly before turning his attention back to Diana. “We didn’t hear a peep out of you for damn near a week, rook—the folks holdin’ out here thought you were dead-!”

“You and Jess went M.I.A. after the radios came back online,” Grace cuts in a little cautiously as they hit the ground floor. “She never made it back here. And she ain’t with you now…” 

Diana glances back for a second as she comes upon the table in the center of the room. “No. She’s not. ‘Cause _Jacob fucking Seed_ still has her. _That’s where I was for damn near a week, sheriff.”_

Whitehorse’s mouth clamps shut. They’d all had their suspicions that her and Jess had been captured, but hearing it directly from her casts it in the horrid light of truth. 

She stops beside Nora, gives the woman a curt nod before leaning over the table and sliding the maps over so that she can peruse them. 

“What happened with John? These two said you took off after him,” Joey butts in, extending her hand back toward Jerome and Mary May. “Did you _at least_ put that motherfucker in the ground!?”

Diana snaps her head up, her lip curling. _“No._ I told you, _nothing happened._ I gave chase but I couldn’t catch up to them in time—he made it back to his ranch and took off in that fucking plane of his before I could do anything.” 

Hudson grimaces, folds her arms and looks away. Clearly, that’s not the desired answer. 

The truth would be a hell of a lot worse. How do you explain being forced to rest, handcuffed to a bed and threatened with...what _had_ he threatened her with, exactly, besides that half-hearted move with the revolver to get her to take a shower? Safety? Promises of protection? Promises of something _else,_ some brainwashed happily-ever-after?

Diana closes her eyes for a moment, wills away the thoughts of what kind of hell will be wrought upon them now that she’s done exactly what he told her not to. 

It doesn’t matter. She needs to get Jess. 

She looks up at the faces of her allies gathered around the table. “John isn’t my concern right now. We need to put a call out to Eli. I have a plan, but it’s…big. Like, _all hands on deck_ big.” 

Sharky quirks an eyebrow. “For goin’ to get Jess?”

Diana nods. She pauses, takes a breath, suddenly very unsure of how they’re going to respond. “I want to attack the Veteran’s Center.” 

. . .

_“John. This is...unexpected. To what do I owe the pleasure?”_

John’s brow twitches. His knuckles are already white around the radio clenched in his hand. He didn’t want to call _her,_ but he doesn’t know what else to do. He’d sent only his Chosen to scour the sky and the roads of Holland Valley for fear of there being any more of his brother’s spies among the rest of his flock - even taken Affirmation out himself - and they’d come up with _jack fucking squat._

But he knows her little friends are all hiding in the Henbane, knows that’s the first place she’ll run to. And so he swallows his distaste, and swallows a good deal of his pride as well as he prepares to _beg._

“Faith. I know this is a bit out of the ordinary,” he begins, attempting to ooze his usual aloof, holier-than-thou-ness while he meticulously twists the tip of his pocket knife into his desk. “But I have good reason to believe our...elusive deputy has slipped back across the river.”

A burst of static hits his ears and he grits his teeth against it, thinking he can just barely hear a soft hum coming from her in response. 

“If it’s not too much trouble, could you be a dear and scoop her up for me? I fear she’s still suffering from some pre-Atonement jitters. Cold feet in the face of divine enlightenment and eternal salvation. Et cetera.” 

_“Perhaps she still isn’t ready. She hasn’t even walked the path…”_

“She doesn’t _need_ to walk the path,” he retorts curtly, curling his fingers tightly around the handle of the knife. He can just picture Faith’s syrupy smile and it makes him want to stab something.

No, Diana doesn’t need to become one of his _dear sister’s_ Angels; they may be pliable, and he will admit the Project’s work never would have been so near to completion without them, but they are _empty_. Hollow shells. Some say their souls have already ascended, leaving the bodies behind in service to the divine will of the Father. To Faith’s will, really, which he likes far less.

That is not the deputy’s purpose, and he will not let Faith twist the Father’s vision to make Diana her own. A little white lie on his own part surely couldn’t hurt to get the point across. “She was already partway through her Atonement when those filthy sinners laid siege on us. I’m asking you directly because I respect you too much to simply go traipsing into the Henbane after them.” 

_“I...appreciate that. I will admit, my attempts at coercing them from the jail have been fruitless so far. Maybe I’ve been too soft on them; didn’t realize how blinded they truly are. I think a heavier hand might be needed to show them the error of their ways.”_

“Just...give me a ring as soon as you’ve picked her up, would you?” John grits out, trying like hell to maintain his composure, just trying to get a fucking _yes_ out of her. “And don’t give her too much Bliss; I’m sure you know it affects her oddly. I don’t want her to be too sick to finish her Atonement. You understand.” 

There is a pause. And then a soft giggle that sends a thread of ire rippling up through him. 

_“Of course, John. I’ll see what I can do…”_

. . .

After the call is put out and a rough plan of attack put in place, the jail becomes a hotbed of activity. People who’ve volunteered to join the attack file into line in front of the makeshift armory as weapons and ammunition are dispensed, while others work at putting first aid kits together with the meager supplies they’ve scrounged. Many have taken off in twos and threes to scour the surrounding areas for vehicles that are still in drivable condition.

Joey catches Diana after she’s just managed to change into a fresh pair of clothes, taking her by surprise in the bathroom just as she’s stuffing her old unsalvageable things into a trash bin.

She stops under her partner’s scrutiny, blinks and lets the lid fall back over the receptacle before straightening up and tucking an unruly strand of dark hair behind her ear. She doesn’t like feeling cornered; doesn’t _want_ to feel that way, but that’s the undeniable vibe Hudson is giving off. 

“If all that Atonement shit happened yesterday...what took you so long to get back here? You obviously didn’t stake out that fucker’s house and wait for him to come back,” Joey accuses, folding her arms and leaning against the doorway, clearly blocking Diana’s exit.

Diana frowns. _“No_. I didn’t. I found the nearest bunker, locked myself inside, _nursed my wounds_ and got some fucking sleep.”

“Unbelievable,” Joey grits out, shaking her head. “You had the chance to kill one of those fucking psychos and you just _let it slide!?”_

Diana scoffs indignantly. Her hackles are up now, and it doesn’t even matter that she’s defending John Seed’s actions without Joey knowing; she’s not exactly lying about getting a single decent night’s sleep, after all. And he must have put some kind of antibiotic on the wrath scrawled on her chest; she’d smelled the distinctive antiseptic aroma when she first woke up. Little deceptions pulled from truth, for the good of these people she’s made it her mission to help. 

She takes a deep breath, tries not to let her sudden and powerful resentment get the better of her; Joey was trapped in his bunker for weeks, most certainly traumatized by it. But Diana’s been through her own share of hell in the meantime. 

“Yeah, I _did_ let it slide! I’m _fucking exhausted,_ Joey, and there is no way in hell I could have taken him down on my own! After Nick and Kim, Mary May and Jerome—they were the last of the civilians John had hostage, and I know damn fucking well those Peggies aren’t playing games anymore,” she seethes, splaying her arms at her sides. 

“If I tried to attack that ranch they would have fucking _killed me._ So here’s a question for you—do you try to get revenge on someone who doesn’t even have anything left to hold over you - and probably get yourself killed in the process - or do you try to rescue your friends and _fellow deputy_ who are still out there being held against their will?” 

Joey frowns, unfolding her arms and straightening up from the doorframe. 

“I know that asshole had you underground for too long, and I’m _sorry_ about that—if I could’ve taken your place I would have done it gladly. But you’re free _now,”_ Diana asserts, taking a step forward. “And what Jacob is doing...it doesn’t even compare, okay? I’ve been up there— _I’ve been in his fucking cages_. I _have_ to go get Jess and Pratt. And I would’ve done it even sooner, but I _couldn’t.”_

Joey’s dark lashes flutter. She casts her gaze to the ground, deflating in the wake of Diana’s tirade. 

Even full of half truths as it is, the sentiments are all sincere. John doesn’t have any more of their people; and though she fears what he may do in retaliation for her running away, rescuing the others is simply higher on her list of priorities. If she can free them, convince them to get the fuck out of the county en masse...she can figure the rest out after.

“I, uh…” Joey clears her throat and shifts uncomfortably, putting a hand back against the bathroom door. “Shit. I’m sorry. I just—I’m just so _fucking angry,_ I-”

“I know. I get it, Joey, I _do,”_ Diana replies, muting her voice in response to the tortured look on the other woman’s face. 

She wets her lips, hesitates for a moment. She isn’t entirely sure she wants to know the answer to her next question. “What did he do...?” 

Joey blinks fast, reaches up to angrily wipe at her eyes with the heel of her hand, shaking her head. “A lot of threats. Brought up a bunch of shit from my past I don’t even know _how_ he knew about. Threatened to throw the fucking book at the whole sheriff’s department for not _practicing correct procedure_ when we tried to arrest his brother. He isolated us…practically starved us. I was about to give him his bullshit confession just for a fucking _glass of water_. And then you showed up.” 

Diana winces. She almost reaches out to touch Joey’s arm, then thinks better of it. If Joey knew where her hands have been, she’d cut them off.

_“And then you escaped_. And things changed after that. You could tell he felt like—like he failed.” Joey winces, looking like she’s practically reliving the experience. “And he’d come back and go even harder than before...except all of his questions were about _you._ And then he...he’d just _disappear._ For days, maybe even a week at a time, I don’t really remember-”

“That’s okay, I...I’m sorry I asked.”

“No, _I’m sorry_ ––I came in here and cornered you. I know you’ve been out here fighting this whole time. I just...I just still can’t believe this shit is happening…”

Diana sighs. “I know. And if you don’t want to go with us, it’s okay-”

Joey shakes her head, her mouth thinning into a firm line. “No, I do. You’re right. We need to get Staci.”

Diana nods, her own anger fizzled out by now. “Okay then. We have to go soon, though, if we wanna meet up with the Whitetails.”

She can’t blame Hudson for being fixated on John. She’s relieved to hear he didn’t tattoo her or have her beaten senseless. Not that starvation and dehydration count for anything much better, but…

She is surprised when Joey suddenly pulls her into a tight hug. It’s awkward and brief, only lasts a few seconds before Joey pulls away and pushes open the bathroom door. 

“Let’s go kick some fuckin’ Peggie ass then, partner.”

. . .

The groups converge on the St. Francis Veteran’s Center at almost exactly 6 p.m. 

Eli promised to call in all his Whitetail scouts from where they’d been scattered across the northern reaches of the county, and he did not disappoint. There must be sixty people all told, between his militia and the Resistance members from the jail. 

They need to hit hard and fast; can’t allow time for Jacob to call in reinforcements from his armory or any of the outposts he still holds. Their goal is to free as many civilian and militia prisoners as possible, and if they take him out in the process? That’s just an added bonus. 

They don’t have the element of surprise for very long when their convoy rolls in, opting instead for sheer brute force. Eli - in the lead in a commandeered tractor-trailer - plows straight through the closed gates of the Vet Center and into the courtyard, allowing some of the rest of their vehicles to swarm in behind until there is simply no more room and the rest have to stop outside. 

The gunfire starts up almost immediately. Judge wolves are let loose from their cages. Resistance members duck and dodge the animals between their trucks and some are even brave enough to climb up onto the vehicles’ roofs to take potshots and watch their comrades’ backs.

Diana brings a small group with her into the Vet Center amidst the chaos they’ve churned up outside. Pastor Jerome, Grace, Wheaty and Joey Hudson make up her main extraction team, with some others instructed to follow in behind whenever they get the opportunity. 

The sound of blaring alarms cuts through the cacophony of gunfire and the heavy whirring of Adelaide’s chopper thrumming through the sky, making them have to yell in order to be heard over all of it. 

Diana sends Grace and Pastor Jerome off to sweep the ground floor of the building while Joey and Wheaty stay with her to make their way upstairs. It’s unquestionably dangerous with so few of them, but the building is full of clutter and plenty of nooks and crannies to dodge into and hide behind. 

They have to find Jacob’s radio room; presumably it houses the controls for the alarm system, and it must be shut down as fast as possible. Eli had shared what little knowledge he had of St. Francis’s setup with them before they’d left the Henbane, and he’d seemed fairly certain Jacob’s command center was somewhere on the upper floor. 

Diana tries to keep a close eye on Wheaty as they fight their way through the bleak and dilapidated building. She didn’t want to put him in this kind of danger; despite how eager he is, he’s so _young._ It’s not fair that he’s here, being forced to fight.

Joey places a bullet neatly between the eyes of a Chosen who bursts from a door in the middle of the hallway they’re moving down, and then quickly steps over him to check the interior of the room.

“Ah, shit... _Diana!”_

Diana immediately makes her way to the room, signaling for Wheaty to come stand guard in the doorway. It’s dimly lit, just like every other room they’ve been through; a chair and a bed and a projector pointed at the wall, just like the others. 

But there in the corner, inside a cage, is Jess. 

She’s curled up into a ball, arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Her trademark green sweatshirt is gone, leaving her battered frame exposed to the chill air in only a darkly stained tank top and jeans. 

Jess doesn’t respond when the two women approach calling her name. 

Diana pulls at the cage door and then yanks hard on the padlock keeping it shut tight, cursing loudly. “Hudson, back up, I’m shooting it-!”

_“No,”_ Joey replies quickly, grabbing Diana by her elbow and pulling her back before she can aim her gun. “It’s too dangerous—if a bullet ricochets in here it could kill somebody.” 

“We don’t have time to look for the fucking key-!”

“Wheaty!” Joey calls, looking back over her shoulder toward the doorway. “Can you search the...dead...guy...?”

Wheaty is gone. 

“What the _fuck,”_ Diana hisses, partly out of irritation and partly out of a sudden rush of fear. She brandishes the Desert Eagle she’d acquired from the jail’s armory, shoots one last desperate glance back at Jess and then makes her way for the door with Joey following close behind.


	27. Walking On Sunshine

The alarms suddenly go quiet, bathing the Veteran’s Center in eerie silence. Diana and Joey both look at each other warily and then Joey kneels, searching the dead man’s pockets for keys. 

Diana pokes her head out into the hallway, checking for signs of a struggle, but there’s nothing to be seen nor heard aside from the sounds of absolute chaos still coming from outside. 

When Joey’s search comes up empty they make their way out, heading in the direction they haven’t traversed yet. The next door opens upon another empty conditioning room and they pass it by, heading for the next further down the hall, checking behind occasionally to make sure no one is coming up on them.

This room is huge, better lit from the massive balcony doors that stand open directly opposite from where they’ve stopped. There’s a table in the middle of the room covered in paperwork, stationary and radio equipment. 

And beside it stands Staci, with an arm locked tight around Wheaty’s neck, his department-issue 9mm pointed at the kid’s temple. 

Pratt grimaces at the two women. “You shouldn’t have come back here, rook. _You should’ve stayed dead.”_

Diana puts a hand out in front of Joey to stop her from vaulting forward, taking a small step into what must be Jacob’s control room. “ _Staci_ —let him go-”

 _“I can’t,”_ he responds harshly, pressing the barrel up against Wheaty’s temple in a way that brooks no argument. _“You think he’d allow that!?”_

_“Hey!_ Hey hey hey, _c’mon, man,_ ain’t you supposed to be one of the good guys?” Wheaty babbles nervously, his hands gripping tightly at Staci’s forearm. His gaze darts between the two women fearfully. 

Diana takes her finger off the trigger and tilts her gun toward the ceiling, putting her other hand up in the air in a tenuous gesture of peace. She takes another slow step forward, Joey following close beside, mimicking her movements as they both try to allay any chances for undue violence. After what Pratt’s probably been through, he is an unknown to them and it’s best to tread lightly.

“We’re here to get you _away from him,_ Staci. _We came here for you._ Let the kid go and we can all get the fuck out of here,” Joey pleads, looking tortured at the state they’ve found him in.

Staci starts shaking his head, a flicker of doubt or unease passing across his face. 

And then he stiffens, spine straightening as his gaze focuses behind them. 

Joey glances over at Diana for a moment before they both turn at the soft, throaty sound of someone _chuckling_ just behind them. 

There stands Jacob Seed, his imposing frame practically taking up the entire doorway. He drops his arms from where they were folded, moves inside the room while the two women back away from him, trying to keep a safe distance.

He smiles that infuriating smile, a look of mock surprise washing over his face as he puts his hands up the same way Joey and Diana had a few moments before. “Sorry to interrupt your little reunion, officers. Though I’m guessin’ you didn’t come back here with a warrant...did you?”

Diana narrows her eyes, glances back to Pratt only to see him hardened up once more, his gaze all but empty as he holds Wheaty firm. 

She takes another step away from Jacob, moves her finger back over the trigger surreptitiously. “I think after I woke up in a pile of corpses we’re well past the point of things like warrants, _Jake.”_

Jacob tuts, clicking his tongue as he ambles toward the center of the room. “That... _was_ my mistake, wasn’t it? I should’ve made sure they checked before they threw you in the pile,” he replies nonchalantly, coming to a stop beside the table.

“Or made sure they’d _burned it quicker_. Either way, the men who were responsible for that negligence have been dealt with,” he continues, reaching out to put his hand on a remote that sits on the table. He brushes his fingers over it thoughtfully before picking it up, examining it like it’s something infinitely fascinating. 

“How’s my brother, by the way?” he asks, gaze flicking back up to her. 

Diana’s eyes narrow. She chooses to remain stubbornly silent as Joey looks between them, one eyebrow raised sharply. 

“Hm. Probably thinks I betrayed him, doesn’t he? I only wanted to show him what you really are. _A tool._ Not a _hero—_ not some martyr, not some saint for your flimsy little Resistance. And certainly not a toy for him to play with until he gets tired of you.” 

_“What the fuck is he talking about…?”_ Joey hisses, glancing back at Diana, readjusting her grip on her pistol. 

“Our _flimsy little Resistance_ is out there kicking your cult’s ass right now, in case you haven’t noticed,” Diana spits, ignoring the remarks about John and, by extension, Joey’s question. 

Jacob only chuckles in response, twirling the remote between his fingers. He stops abruptly, the smile on his lips fading into a hard line as he jabs a button with his thumb. 

The harsh sound of feedback cuts through the air on the Center’s speaker system, echoing through the whole building and most likely into the yard as well. 

Diana’s eyes widen in the split second it takes for her to realize what he must be doing. She immediately turns her gun on the sound equipment while Jacob quickdraws his own hunter-red pistol from its holster on his thigh. 

Suddenly, the brazen sound of horns and a strong snare beat fills the room and the corridors outside, a jaunty 80’s pop score that sounds nothing like _Only You._

A vein in the vicinity of Jacob’s left eye twitches as he turns his head, glaring absolute daggers at the setup on the table.

  
  


_“I used to think maybe you loved me, now, baby, I’m sure.”_

_“And I just can’t wait ‘til the day you knock on my door.”_

  
  


Wheaty lets out a strangled laugh from where Staci still has hold of him, his face breaking out in a meek but proud grin. 

  
  


_“I’m walkin’ on sunshine, whoo-oa!”_

_“I’m walkin’ on sunshine, whoo-oa!”_

  
  


Diana’s aim falters. _That brilliant little bastard._ Wheaty must have switched the tapes in the sound system before Staci caught him. 

She turns her gaze back on Jacob almost a second too late. He fires his pistol right as she ducks, pulling Joey down to the floor alongside her and out of his line of sight.

Diana pushes her partner in the direction of Staci and Wheaty while she scrambles underneath the table, heading for Jacob’s legs.

  
  


_“And don’t it feel good!”_

_“Yeah, oh yeah, now! And don’t it feel good!”_

  
  


The song seems to snap some tenuous thread in Pratt’s mind; he moves his pistol from the side of Wheaty’s head and pushes the kid away, turning toward Jacob with a dark scowl clouding his features. 

Jacob bends down and grabs one of Diana's hands when they appear from beneath the table, making to haul her out from under there so that he can put his gun right up against the meddling bitch’s head and be done with it. He doesn’t notice Staci coming for him with long, furious strides. 

  
  


_“I used to think maybe you loved me, now I know that it’s true.”_

_“And I don’t want to spend my whole life just a-waitin’ for you.”_

  
  


Diana screams when he grabs her. 

Staci tackles him to the ground a split second later and she gets yanked harshly to the side, dropping her gun when Jacob doesn’t let go of her; nearly takes the table out by two of its legs when she slams into them, jolting the whole thing and causing some pens and loose files to shower down onto the ground beside them. 

_“You fucking piece of shit!”_ Staci screams hoarsely, sitting up on his knees and aiming his own weapon somewhere in the vicinity of the eldest Seed’s windpipe.

 _“Staci!”_ Joey screams. 

Jacob finally lets go of Diana to swipe at the barrel of Staci’s gun, sneering up at the younger man scornfully. “I’ll have you drawn and quartered for this, _you fucking worm!”_

It only takes a moment for Jacob to overpower Staci, knocking the pistol from the deputy’s hand and practically throwing him across the floor toward the balcony doors. 

  
  


_“I’m walkin’ on sunshine, whoo-oa!”_

_“I’m walkin’ on sunshine, whoo-oa!”_

  
  


Jacob sits up, starts moving like he’s going after Staci when Diana lunges for him, trying to wrap an arm around his neck and haul him back. She gets an elbow in the face for her efforts, falling back against the table once again with a harsh cry of pain. 

_“You’re next, little girl,”_ Jacob promises ominously before he launches to his feet and makes for Staci, lethal violence emanating off of him in waves. 

Another gunshot goes off and Jacob flinches, lurching forward, his momentum faltering. A dark stain blooms on the back of his army jacket from the bullet Joey just put into his shoulder. 

And then a loud blast throws everything into nonsensical chaos. Part of the balcony outside _explodes,_ sending huge chunks of wood and plaster and concrete spraying back into the room, knocking Jacob on his ass with a surprised grunt. 

_“Holy shit!”_ Wheaty yells, ducking a splintered piece of the balcony railing that flies past and almost impales him. He drops to his knees on the floor and makes for Diana as she’s closest, intent on pulling her back from the sudden destruction.

  
  


_“Oh, I’m walkin’ on sunshine, whoo-oa!”_

_“I’m walkin’ on sunshine, whoo-oa!”_

  
  


Joey runs for Staci, coughing through the dust blowing in through the open doors. She grabs at his arms, hauling him to his feet with considerable effort just as a missile - undeniably the culprit of the first explosion - whizzes up past the shattered balcony and in over their heads. 

Wheaty starts dragging Diana back toward the door to the hallway just as the missile bites into the ceiling above the table, blowing open a huge hole and sending more debris flying down on them in every direction. 

_“Fuck!”_ Diana spits, rolling over onto her knees and pushing Wheaty through the door as she coughs violently, pieces of plaster falling off of her as she fumbles for the radio at her hip. 

She presses the talk button as she clambers to her feet, leaning heavily against the doorframe. _“Hurk! Cease fire! Do you hear me!? Stop fucking firing!”_

A burst of static comes back in response before Hurk’s voice overtakes it. _“Uh, ten-four, boss! You all need any help in there?”_

 _“My God.”_

Diana looks up to see Jerome just outside the door peering in at the destruction. Grace is close at his side, bent down to help Wheaty to his feet. 

“No. No, just...get the fucking prisoners, get them out of here!” she responds before fumbling to clip the radio back to her belt loop, turning away from the door to allow Jerome inside the half-obliterated control room.

She stumbles around the table - caved in along with the radio equipment, which sparks dangerously - and makes her way toward where Jacob fell. He’s still there, buried underneath chunks of the balcony and the ceiling, unmoving.

Jerome helps Staci to his feet, but they both have to struggle with Joey—she’d taken the brunt of the flying debris trying to push Pratt out of the way and she’s bleeding heavily, flighty and disoriented. 

Diana falls to her knees, pushing chunks of plaster off Jacob to get to his pockets. She needs those fucking cage keys. Her ears are ringing and somewhere in the back of her mind she knows she should put a bullet in him for good measure, but she lost her gun some time around when the balcony first exploded.

Her fingers catch on metal when she shoves her hand underneath his body to dig in his back pockets; she hooks one digit through a ring and hauls the bundle of keys out from under him.

“She okay?” Diana asks Jerome as she pushes herself back to her feet, every bone in her body aching. 

“I hope so, but she needs medical attention. We need to get out of here, deputy,” Jerome replies as he places himself underneath Joey’s arm, wrapping his own around her waist to help keep her upright.

“Take her and Pratt - Wheaty can help - and get the hell out,” she says as she nods her head toward the door. “We found Jess a few rooms down. Grace and I can get her.” 

  
  


. . .

  
  


The wounded are trucked back to the Wolf’s Den under the cover of darkness, Joey, Jess and Pratt included. It’s much closer than the jail, and better equipped to handle their needs, despite the former’s being outfitted with an infirmary. 

Diana travels with the Whitetails instead of returning to the Henbane with Jerome, Grace and the others, wanting to keep an eye on Jess and her colleagues. She helps keep Joey upright in the back of the van they’re riding in, sneaking worried glances at Jess curled up in the opposite corner. Pratt doesn’t say a word for the entire trip.

It’s dangerous, having so much commotion outside a place that’s supposed to be hidden from the watchful eyes of the cult, so they do their best to get people moved inside and vehicles driven away quickly.

Joey is laid out on a sleeping bag on the floor and sedated. Tammy kneels beside her, tending her wounds - deep lacerations on her head as a result of the explosion - shooting cold glances at Diana every time she walks by. 

Diana doggedly ignores the stares, helps to carry medical supplies back and forth between the suffering. Tries not to think about the fact that, at least back at the jail, they’d had Charles Lindsay. There are only a few people with hard medical knowledge here, and all of them had only been nurses or CNA’s before.

It’s bleak having them all crammed into the small bunker, but they somehow manage to make it work. 

Diana finally gets the chance to catch up with Eli several hours later, once things have died down and most everyone else is asleep.

“So...what’s the damage?” she asks a little cautiously, ready to get an earful for sending his men and innocent civilians into a quite literal wolves’ den.

Eli turns from where he’d been studiously watching the footage from his security cameras, folds his arms and leans back against the table. “Not bad, all things considered. Normally, I wouldn’t say this, but...I think it’s good we didn’t give ourselves much time to plan for it.” 

Diana blinks, mildly taken aback. That was not the answer she’d been expecting. “Y-you do...?”

“Yes. It gave us the advantage of surprise. I don’t think there’s any other way we could’ve pulled that off.” He looks thoughtful for a moment, gaze skirting the floor before returning to her. “Is Jacob dead?” 

Diana releases a breath and shrugs. “I don’t know. Hudson shot him. He was unresponsive when we left. I, uh...I know we should have finished the job while we had the chance-”

Eli shakes his head, waving her off, though his expression has grown grim. “No, don’t apologize, deputy. You were in an...exceptional situation. I know you were focused on getting Jess and the others out of there. And I appreciate that you did, believe me. She’s one of our most capable people.” 

Diana looks up at him, worries her lip with her teeth for a moment. “How is she? I haven’t had the chance to check...” 

Eli gives her a somewhat pointed look. “You haven’t even stopped to have yourself looked at. You should take some time to clean yourself up, now that everybody else is taken care of. Put some ice on that black eye. But, Jess is...stable, at least. We’ve got her in the interrogation room for now, until her condition changes.” 

Diana frowns at that. “Why?” 

“She hasn’t snapped out of whatever shock she’s in. And Tammy’s...well...you know Tammy’s feelings. She doesn’t like me bringin’ in folks that have been in Jacob’s chair. Doesn’t trust ‘em.” 

Diana sucks her teeth and can’t help thinking about how Jacob had so easily set her on John, even if she’d been ready to attack him to begin with. But John was right, yet again, when he’d had her handcuffed to his bed; her previous attempts on his life may have been fueled by rage, but they were _always_ easily thwarted. Despite all he’s done, deep down, she’d never intended to kill him before. 

That thought sets her on edge. She clears her throat and nods, begrudgingly acknowledging Tammy’s feelings on the subject. “Tomorrow I’ll, uh...I’ll get Jess and Pratt out of here. Take them back to the jail. It’ll be easier to keep an eye on both of them.” 

The fact that the jail has actual holding cells goes unspoken, but it seems Eli picks up on it easily enough. “Might not be the worst idea. Deputy Hudson and the others we can hold onto until they’re in better shape.” 

Diana nods again and decides to leave it at that, parting from him with a thank you. It doesn’t seem like enough for all he and his people have done, begrudgingly or not, but it’s the best she can do at the moment. 

She wanders the quiet bunker, treading lightly around the people sleeping. It’s confining in here, and she doesn’t like finally being left alone with her thoughts. There’s too much to think about, and none of it good. Guilt tugs at her conscience, over everyone and just about everything. 

The worst part is the idea of returning to the valley pulls at her; she could easily make an excuse about going to check up on Nick and Kim, and she _does_ want to do that, but mostly...mostly she wants what only John seems to be able to provide.

The pinpoint focus he elicits, the way he hones all of her anger and frustration in on himself and almost _happily_ drinks it up. The blessed _quiet_ that clouds her mind whenever they’ve found themselves entwined like snakes in the grass. They way he _knows_ her, sees through her, is an inescapable accomplice to her demons and has very quickly insinuated himself in amongst them.

She makes her way to the interrogation room instead, walking by one of the bunker’s hatches only with great effort. Peers in through the square pane of glass set in the door to see Jess, curled up in a dark corner of the room, a seemingly untouched plate of food on the floor beside her. Diana’s heart lurches. 

She reaches down and turns the door handle, hearing the lock pop and wincing at the knowledge that they’d locked her in. 

“Jess?” she inquires almost gently, easing her way inside and quietly shutting the door. 

When Diana gets no response, she takes a few steps into the room, skirting around the kiddy pool with the battery set up next to it and pushing down inevitable memories of John’s confessional. 

She squats a foot or so away from the other woman, taking in her tangled hair and bruises, the bloodied knuckles and the vacant look in her eyes. 

“Jess…?” 

Diana lifts a hand, tentatively reaches out to touch the hunter’s arm.

And then Jess’s eyes flick up, shining in the semi-darkness. 

_“Don’t touch me,”_ she hisses, her teeth bared as she scrambles backwards further into the corner. 

Diana almost tips back on her ass with how much the sudden movement startles her. She inhales sharply, eyes widening. _“Jesus-!”_

They both sit there in suspenseful silence for a moment before Diana steels herself and scoots forward carefully once more. “It’s just me-”

“I know,” Jess mutters hoarsely, blinking hard a few times. Her eyes dart to Diana but it’s like she can’t look directly at the deputy for too long. Can’t maintain that connection, however small. “I don’t, mmm…” 

Jess drifts off for a few moments, hugging her arms tight around herself, knees curled up to her chest. “Don’t trust myself too fuckin’ much right now, dep. Thinkin’ you should probably leave.” 

Diana watches Jess’s eyes flit back and forth again, recalling the way she’d felt after waking up from the nightmare of Jacob’s trials. 

She wets her lips, gives a faint nod; _hates_ the fact that she deeply understands exactly how Jess feels. “Yeah, okay...just, uh...promise me you’ll try to eat something, okay?”

She plants one hand on the floor and levers herself to her feet, standing there awkwardly for a few more moments. “You’re safe now. Try to get some sleep. Tomorrow you and Pratt come back to the jail with me, and, uh...we all stay the fuck out of the Whitetails for a while. Yeah?” 

She only gets a small nod in return and deems it has to be left at that. Diana exits the room with her skin prickling, rage boiling away just under the surface, craving an outlet. For lack of a gun handy, she should have taken one of those big chunks of concrete and smashed Jacob’s fucking head in with it. 

As it stands, she can’t even find a car and drive back to the valley to scratch this infuriating itch; she knows John would more than likely just as soon kill her for what she _did_ manage to do to his brother. 

She hates what this fucked up family has done to her. She hates that maybe the reason she didn’t finish Jacob off with her own two hands is because it _would_ drive an irreparable wedge into whatever she has with John. She hates that that _worries_ her far more than it should. She hates herself for letting those feelings distract her,

The only solution she comes to is to keep moving. Keep up the attack. If she’s busy fighting, it doesn’t allow her the time to think about everything she’s done wrong. She needs to send Joseph Seed a message. A very big, very loud one. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Walking on Sunshine is a song by Katrina and the Waves!


	28. Raise Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baby drop them bones
> 
> Baby sell that soul
> 
> Baby fare thee well
> 
> Somebody gotta, gotta raise a little hell
> 
> \- Dorothy, Raise Hell

The drive back to the jail is...uncomfortable.

Jess seems to be doing better than she was the night before, but she’s still quiet. She sits with her head leaned against the passenger window of the truck they’ve taken, knuckles pressed against her mouth, eyes fixed blankly on the lakes and forest flying by.

Staci sits motionless in the back seat, emanating an almost menacing quiet that threatens to send shivers down Diana’s spine.

She’s got one of many cigarettes lit, held up beside her open window so that the smoke won’t clog up the cab. The radio’s turned on low to drown out some of the eerie silence. Neither helps much.

When she glances up at him in the rearview and asks how he’s holding up, Staci mutters something about how he’s not even sure he deserves to be alive. She doesn’t ask again after that.

Neither Jess nor Staci put up any resistance when they get back to the jail and Diana explains that they’re both going to be kept in holding cells for a few days, just for observation. For their own safety.

She can’t help lingering outside the bars for a few minutes after they’re locked in, watching as her friend and former colleague both sit and pace listlessly. It’s like the lights are on, but not much of anyone is actually home. It sends a wave of some undefinable emotion coursing through her, makes her chest tighten and her wrath start to rear its ugly head, demanding some kind of retribution.

She finally forces herself to break away and wander the grounds in order to catch up with Whitehorse. Tracey is with him in the jail’s former break room, and Diana thanks her for her help up north and lets them know the status of the wounded. She asks the sheriff if anything happened while they were gone, to which the answer is nothing of importance. A few Angels sighted sniffing around the perimeter, but nothing that couldn’t be taken care of by a sniper on the roof.

That settled, Diana’s next item on the list is to find Hurk and Sharky. That hard and fast mentality is still scratching at the inside of her skull, and she feels distinctly that if they stop or slow down now the consequences, as John said, will be dire. They need to show Eden’s Gate they’re done fucking around. They need to keep hitting first and they need to keep hitting _hard_.

She needs to draw Faith out. Not some phantom Bliss hallucination, but the real thing. And she needs to do it _soon_. Before their forces have time to assess Jacob’s status and regroup to come back at them. She hopes as much as she can, that if the heralds are out of the way, the rest of the cult will simply collapse in on itself or scatter to the wind.

And if not - if this thing goes south - she has to try to convince the Resistance to leave Hope County. Escape by any means necessary.

She’s already getting a headache being back here. Hearing Hurk and Sharky’s voices echoing loudly in the yard out behind the jail sends a pulsing wave of nausea up through her gut as she shoulders her way out through one of the heavy doors. Despite it, she takes a deep breath and descends the large stairwell to go find them anyway. They are the demolition experts, after all.

It doesn’t take long to narrow down their location; they’re out near the fence with Nora’s young boy Shaun, talking and joking loudly while apparently attempting to explain the mechanics of something to him.

_“Boys,”_ Diana calls a little suspiciously by way of greeting as she approaches. “Why’s it look like you’re plotting something out here…?”

All three turn their heads to look at her when she addresses them, Sharky and Hurk from over their shoulders. They’re both huddled over a foldout table, Shaun stood somewhat to the side.

“H-heya, Double-D-”

“Hurk and Sharky are showing me about bombs!” Shaun blurts out excitedly, completely unaware of whether or not he should be coy about their dubious choice of pastime.

Diana blinks and can’t help angling herself to see what it is they’re hiding. Sure enough, there’s a crude package half put-together in front of them, what looks like a brick of fertilizer swaddled in cling wrap and partially strapped to a bundle of dynamite.

Diana folds her arms. Her eyes move back and forth between the two men as she considers giving them an earful.

Sharky straightens up, reaching up to adjust his ballcap a little awkwardly. “Didn’t get the chance to mention it the other day on account of the big rescue mission, but we been pretty busy back here while you were gone, dep. Little broski here ain’t the only one we been teachin’ this stuff to.”

He nods his head off to his left, and Diana tracks his movement, her eyes drawn to a large pallet with the contents covered over by a big blue tarp. She quirks an eyebrow, quickly casting her gaze back to Sharky. “Is that-?”

“If you’re thinkin’ it’s a metric fu - uh - _crap_ -ton of homemade explosive, well...you’d be one hundred percent right, chica.”

Sharky and Hurk both give her devilish grins and she can’t help letting out a breathless little laugh in response, all thoughts of reprimanding them gone.

_“Perfect.”_

. . .

“You know what to do. My Faith…”

Joseph looks down at her, a faint smile turning up the corners of his mouth as he tucks a golden strand of hair behind her ear. She is truly incandescent, this girl who once came to him broken and wanting.

Now she _shines,_ radiating love and holiness and fealty, exactly as she was meant to. Ready and willing to carry out the Lord’s work.

“John is...losing himself,” he mutters as he turns away from her, feeling the guilt welling up inside. It’s gone on too long. After the stunt Jacob pulled on their brother, Joseph is nearing his wits’ end.

He’d gone to John, to check that his younger brother was alright but also to beg him for a promise; the deputy would be brought to Atonement or she would be _neutralized_. No more games, no more indulgences. No more bending the rules.

He’d promised Atonement. _Imminently_.

And the next thing the Father knew, one of his children was calling in, frantic. The Veteran’s Center was being overwhelmed. New recruits were being taken. Jacob had gone radio silent.

And Joseph had started praying.

“I cannot let her _take him from me,”_ he continues, casting his heavy gaze back to Faith. “And I thank God that Jacob survived that assault, but this only proves that _something_ must be done.”

“Of course, Father,” Faith replies, ever demure and placid. Betraying no hint of the pleasure she receives from knowing that John is on thin ice; knowing that _she_ is being entrusted with saving them all from his mistakes.

“She will not open her eyes to _see_. She will not close her mouth to _hear_. She will not let the light of God and of truth into her heart!” Joseph continues, fist clenching tight around his rosary.

“And he thinks…” He heaves out a weary sigh, raises his gaze up to the high steepled ceiling of his church. “I don’t know _what_ he thinks.”

Joseph shakes his head, silently pleading for some divine answer that doesn’t come. He feels tortured; has heard so many things over the years, some of them wildly conflicting and so vague as to be practically useless, even to him.

He’s been told the harbinger will be the Project’s greatest disciple, but sacrifices must be made in order to bring that to fruition. The seals must be opened. But his family's future has remained wildly unclear to him. He doesn’t know if he’s meant to be able to protect them, even as he prepares to try and do just that. He is sure the deputy isn’t meant to die here; not now, not yet.

But sacrifices must be made.

“John’s always shielded his heart closely, even from me, and I—I’ve tried to tell him he needs to open his eyes and look at the _love_ that surrounds him, but...this deputy - this _snake in our garden -_ is single-handedly undoing _everything_ I’ve worked so hard for. There’s simply no other way,” he utters ominously, casting his gaze back down to the young woman standing between the church’s pews.

“We need this taken care of _now,_ and with Jacob incapacitated...it falls to you to deliver her unto the Bliss. Show her, _again,_ what she has been unwilling to see. Make her...angelic.”

_“Yes, Father.”_

. . .

“Sharky, you there? Over.”

A loud burst of static comes through on the radio and Diana hisses, instinctively lowering it and fumbling to turn down the volume.

_“Roger that, dep. We got eyes on the target. We count - shit - Nora, how many Peggies you count?”_

Something muffled comes in over Sharky’s silence and the white noise of background interference, and then he’s back. _“We count at least twenty. You sure you can draw ‘em off?”_

Diana releases a breath. “No. But if this Jessop place goes up in flames, that’s gotta get their attention, right? Virgil said this is one of their main grow ops. Faith is bound to be pissed if she hears she’s losing it.”

She casts a glance over at Grace, who’s busy cobbling together molotov cocktails on the open tailgate of their truck, using it like a makeshift table. A few other Resistance members mill about close by, some watching the perimeter of the small clearing they’ve chosen as their temporary base. It’s just down the road from the Jessop Conservatory, and hopefully far enough from the main drag that no one will notice their approach until it’s far too late.

Diana’s got Sharky’s shotgun on loan with a few extra boxes of incendiary ammunition to go along with it, but having the extra firepower admittedly isn’t helping to ease her anxiety. She’d already had to ask Grace to drive them out here because her vision is bordering on swimming, that familiar nausea still roiling in her guts.

She presses the talk button once more, pinching the bridge of her nose in some attempt at distracting herself. “Just hold tight. You see them leaving in a hurry, you give me a heads up and then move in and fill that fucking eyesore with as many of those bombs as you can. Over.”

_“You got it, shorty.”_

“You’re gonna hang back once we move in, right?”

Diana looks back at Grace, a frown showing her displeasure at the question. She hadn’t noticed the sniper sneaking peeks at her in between the work of stuffing those bottles with old kerosene-soaked rags and handing them off to their comrades.

“What-?”

“I know that shit makes you sick, Diana,” Grace says pointedly, leveling her with a no-nonsense gaze. “The rest of us can get in close and deal with the side effects, but I think you should pick a spot with a good vantage point and camp out on the perimeter.”

_“Fuck that_. I’m not letting you all go in there without me,” Diana responds a little harsher than intended, hastily clipping the radio back to her belt. “I have a _shotgun,_ Grace. That ain’t gonna do shit if I’m _camped out on the perimeter.”_

“You got a shotgun with _incendiary rounds,_ thanks to Sharky,” Grace quips back calmly. “You can light up those crops while a few of us move in to take out the Peggies patrollin’ the place. Two birds, one stone. And either way...this whole place is gettin’ lit the fuck up,” she ends the beginnings of the argument with a decisive shrug of her shoulders.

Grace finishes handing out the molotovs as Diana begrudgingly acknowledges the point she just made. _“Fine_. Are we ready?”

After some last minute weapon and ammunition checks, the small group - only six people in total - makes their way from the clearing and into the forest, heading for the Project outpost on the other side of the trees.

Shortly they begin to split off from each other, when outdoor flood lights casting long shadows announce the Conservatory’s presence just up ahead.

Diana creeps toward an elevated outcrop of ledge while the others branch off and begin carefully descending the hillside above the Conservatory. She takes up position near the edge of a steep drop-off, taking note of a neat row of the cult’s special jimson weed decorating the area directly below her. There are several others scattered around the property. She’ll have to keep on the move if she wants to hit most of them.

Diana fights through another wave of nausea, planting one hand on the ground to keep herself steady where she kneels, waiting for someone down below to make the first move.

_“None of us are perfect. We all make mistakes from time to time—even myself.”_

Diana glances back, half-turning to face the shadowy forest behind her. She knows that voice—had just been hoping it would take a bit longer to find her.

She tries to slow her breathing, ears perked for any sign that a true, corporeal person may be out there hidden in the shadows. Her brows draw down, and after a solid minute of waiting she turns back and hoists the shotgun upwards.

_“Foolishly, I thought we could come to an understanding.”_

Diana twitches, unfolding from where she’d had the gun cradled up against her shoulder. She glances back once more, dread creeping up and curling within her.

_“Foolishly, I thought we could build a bond of trust...”_

The sound of a gun firing down below draws her out of the strange, anxious lull of Faith’s siren call. She immediately straightens herself back out, aims the shotgun low and fires two rounds straight into the Bliss crop down below.

The recoil makes the butt of the shotgun jerk backwards against her shoulder harshly, but she’s already digging in her pockets for more slugs to load into the chamber as the telltale sounds of a skirmish erupt from the Conservatory grounds. As the plants start to go up in flames, Diana’s up on her feet in a moment and beelining down the hillside.

_“But that trust was never going to come, was it? So...there will be no more interference. No more distractions. No more pity.”_

She stumbles over a rock, nearly goes crashing to the ground in her haste to outrun the voice that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Her equilibrium is off. She’s starting to catch those sparkles in the corners of her vision.

Diana slides to a stop behind a tree, breathing heavy and glancing around to check out this new side of the property. There’s a greenhouse there beside the back of the main building, and she can see the shadows of leaves through the thin plastic. She pumps the shotgun, breaking her cover to advance closer.

_“Don’t you understand what we’re trying to build? Or do you just not care?”_

Diana clenches her jaw and swings the shotgun up, firing two more rounds and punching huge holes through the greenhouse’s plastic tarp. She distantly hears breaking glass and a scream from further in that gets cut off abruptly as she fumbles for two more slugs to load into the gun.

_“I watch you run this way and that, inflicting violence upon those who wish you no harm!”_

Just as she’s turning to start following the perimeter again, something knocks her roughly to the ground. She can’t help letting out a surprised squawk as Sharky’s shotgun flies from her hands and skids across the dirt.

_“They are at peace here. They_ want _to be here.”_

Diana coughs and gasps in a breath, scrambling to her hands and knees to go after the gun. She feels her stomach clench painfully, a potent combination of nausea and the shock of having the wind knocked from her.

_“C’mon, bitch,”_ she grunts as she finally puts her hands on the weapon and flips over onto her back to shakily swing it up at her phantom attacker. _“Is it really you this time-!?”_

She pulls the trigger and fires blindly as she catches Faith’s visage flickering in and out of the air just above her. An infuriating giggle erupts from somewhere close by. She trembles, struggling with the weight of the gun in arms that are starting to feel like jello, eyes darting back and forth to try and catch any glimpse of the ghost-like woman.

A bare foot suddenly appears out of the air and daintily toes the shotgun to the side. Diana lets out a miserable growl when she can’t even fight back against the gentle pressure the phantom applies.

_“I know you have your doubts. But this is the only way the story ends,”_ Faith whispers, honey-sweet from above Diana as she leans down, eclipsing her field of vision. _“You’ll see…”_

. . .

Nora makes a sound from beside Hurk and Sharky, eyes still glued to the binoculars she has pressed to her face. “Something’s happening—I think they’re moving.”

Sharky and Hurk both snap to attention, looking over at her and then up toward the statue of Joseph that decorates the top of Angel’s Peak. They’ve been camped out on a hunter’s tree stand just down the hill for the last forty-five minutes, waiting with bated breath for anything to happen.

Their vantage point isn’t great, but it’s the best they could find without getting too close to the monument and alerting the Peggies to their presence.

Hurk had nearly fallen asleep with their tense silence and nothing to occupy himself with, but he’s alert now, reaching up to scratch a nervous itch under where his bandana’s tied around his head.

“What’s goin’ on?” he asks in a husky whisper, shifting closer to the edge of the stand like he’ll be able to pick out what’s happening up there.

Nora can see men and women with guns scrambling around between jagged outcrops of rock and the odd stonework the Peggies built up around the place. Some of them are waving and pointing, while still others come pouring from the opening at the base of the statue. “I think it worked. They look like a fuckin’ bee’s nest that just got kicked.”

She lowers the binoculars and looks over at the two men standing anxiously beside her, the silvery hoops dangling from her ears glinting when they catch the pale moonlight just right. “Go get the bags. I’m gonna keep watching, but we need to be ready to move as soon as they clear out.”

The men give her eager nods, taking off to make their way down the ladder to where they’d left several backpacks and duffle bags on the ground full of their homemade bombs. Nora had filled them in on what she knew of the statue on their way out here, and their current plan calls for them to split up once they can get inside, two people climbing up towards the top to start planting explosives while they work their way back down, while the third will stay near ground level and work his way up.

It’s crude, but it’s the best they’ve got for what’s sure to be a limited window of time. They managed to jury-rig a few packages with remote explosives instead of just dynamite, and those will be split up and planted in specific locations where they have the potential to do the most initial damage to the monument’s infrastructure.

Nora watches as Peggies begin scrambling down the stone steps toward the old dirt road, her ears perking at the distinctive sound of engines rumbling to life somewhere on the other side of the hill.

She drops the binoculars to let them hang from her neck by their cord and turns to hastily descend the ladder. “They’re leaving. We gotta move!”

Skipping the last few rungs in favor of hopping to the ground, she picks up the lone backpack that remains, slinging it on over her arms. “Remember, any that are left we take out as _quiet_ as possible—yeah? We don’t need to draw their attention back here,” she reminds the two men in the stern motherly tone she’s adopted since having Shaun in her life.

They both nod their agreement as Sharky hands over one of the duffle bags for her to take, already shouldering two of them himself. They’ve all come equipped with silenced handguns and hunting knives (though Hurk had insisted on strapping a machete to his belt, harking back gleefully to his days on the islands), hoping they won’t have any interference but knowing that kind of luck is unlikely.

“Welp. Let’s get this party started, amigos,” Sharky says as cheerfully as possible, readjusting the bags on his shoulders before turning to start up the hill. “And give creepy daddy Joe a taste of that sweet old disco inferno…”


	29. Help Me Faith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I once was a child  
>  With innocent eyes  
>  And my family sworn  
>  They knew best for my life
> 
> I followed their rules  
>  As I played with my friends  
>  When it came to the world  
>  I never thought it would end
> 
> \- The Hope County Choir, Help Me Faith

Diana finds it a little strange that she can’t recall losing Sharky’s shotgun, leaving the Conservatory grounds, crossing the road or descending the winding dirt trail down the hillside to the river. 

A thick fog has rolled in, making the night even darker by virtue of its presence, blocking out the moon and the stars. It smells oddly, something she’s noticed before but never really recognized like she seems to now; sickly sweet and bitter to the senses all at once. 

Faith is wandering along leisurely just ahead of Diana, watching where she steps with her bare feet, arms held out to her sides almost like a child would.

“Did you think you could just continue to do what you wanted without consequences?” She asks, spinning on her heels suddenly to face Diana and walking backwards, seemingly without a care in the world. She tilts her head coquettishly, clasps her hands behind her back.

Diana blinks, sluggish; opens her mouth to speak but only a tendril of green-tinged smoke comes out. She frowns, attention drawn upwards as it rises into the night to melt into the fog. 

“I’ve been reasonable. I’ve been fair. But you are just so... _selfish_. The Father has offered you _everything;_ love, acceptance, a family...absolution. A fresh start in a better world.”

Little dancing ghost lights flit between them as Faith twinkles in and out of existence once again.

_“Time and again, you refuse to accept the miracle he offers you. You are so lost, so fatalistic...you look but you do not_ see.” 

Diana realizes belatedly that the things flitting by all around her must be fireflies. Her attention is drawn off to the left, toward the water, where Faith has suddenly reappeared. She’s holding a lantern that she didn’t have before. It’s ornate brass, antique-looking, like something out of Charles Dickens. The light from the flame flickering inside casts long, eerie shadows across her face.

“Are you so broken...so distrustful that you would turn away the gifts you’ve been offered? For what? For your _friends?”_ Faith tuts impishly, pursing her lips and shaking her head. 

She idly wades into the shallow edge of the river, letting the lantern swing gently at her side. “They don’t care about you—not really. They could never give you the kind of love you need. Those people on the outside...they’re controlled by _fear_. They don’t understand. But he does. He’ll show you…”

Diana frowns, wanting to argue, wanting to contradict her somehow, but she _can’t._ Something about the Bliss - or the way Faith seems to be able to manipulate so much of it - makes her tongue feel like a wet rag inside her mouth, a useless lump of withered muscle that refuses to cooperate. 

A figure slowly appears in the periphery of the lantern's light, gliding seamlessly across the dark expanse of the river’s surface. She realizes it’s someone in a boat when they swing around gently with practiced sweeps of the oars so that the dinghy comes to a smooth stop parallel with the bank. 

“Hey, rook.”

. . .

_“I can’t fucking believe this,”_ John spits, pacing back and forth in front of the austere medical gurney his oldest brother is currently taking up far too much space upon. “No - no, that’s not right - I may not believe it, but I should have fucking _expected_ it.” 

His eyes dart to Jacob briefly as he runs a hand down over his mouth, stopping to point a finger at his brother accusingly. _“I almost had her._ But _you_ had to go and pull that little _stunt_ —just had to show off your little... _Pavlovian fucking mind tricks!”_

Jacob sighs, letting his head thump back against the gurney’s lumpy pillow. He’s currently mildly sedated with a useless shoulder, and as it stands he’s just been patiently listening to his little brother rant and rave for the better part of the last fifteen minutes; waiting for John to get it out of his system. 

“...because you don’t have faith in me—you’ve _never_ had faith in me,” John seethes, slicing his hand through the air. “And you just _had_ to try and prove your point, didn’t you!?”

Jacob angles his head when there’s finally a pause for longer than it takes John to draw another breath just to keep going. “Are you done? All you had to do was _put her down,_ John-”

_“No! I am not done and that is_ not _what is supposed to happen!”_ John rounds on his brother, stalking toward where Jacob sits, propped up. “If I had just been given the _time_ and the _fucking space_ I needed, _she would have been mine already-!”_

“Don’t you mean _ours?”_ Jacob rebuts calmly, angling his head and pinning his brother with a sharp gaze despite the effects of the sedative. “Don’t forget, it was _Joe_ that wanted her. It never mattered who got her or how. And you had _plenty_ of chances,” he finishes after a brief, pointed pause.

John shakes his head, tentatively at first, but then with more certainty. “It was a _war of attrition._ Surely you’ve heard of that!? But you and Rachel just _had_ to interfere, and now look at what’s happened! _You think I branded her wrath just for the fucking fun of it-!?”_

_“I think you’re startin’ to lose your goddamn mind, John!”_ Jacob practically barks, pushing himself up straighter even as it obviously pains him to do so. The dark hollows beneath his eyes stand out starker than usual in the harsh fluorescent light, clearly belying how very little sleep he actually gets. 

“First that fucking Fairgrave woman, and now this!? This...pathetic, no-account, backwater cop!?” Jacob jabs his good hand in the air, fingers splayed in an instinctive attempt at punctuating his anger. “Fuck’s sake, John, she doesn’t mean _shit!_ You are losing sight of your goddamn purpose!”

He points his own finger up at John, can’t help his lip curling into a snarl. “You’re letting her make you _weak.”_

The corner of John’s mouth twitches. He huffs out an indignant scoff, reaches up to smooth his hair back into place. “What happened with Miss Fairgrave was unfortunate, I will admit that. But that vindictive little bitch can _choke and rot,_ for all I care. This is different! Joseph wanted the deputy brought to Atonement so that we could walk through the gates _together-!”_

_“He wants her out of the way!_ We _all_ want her out of the way––it doesn’t matter what he said in the beginning! Soon as you started playing your juvenile little games with her, letting her run amok, the plan had to change!” 

Jacob winces. The way his shoulders rise and fall heavily isn’t doing that bullet wound any favors. Still, he presses on. “Don’t you fucking get it? We wouldn’t even be having this pathetic argument if you’d pulled your head out of your ass, smartened up and done what you were _fucking supposed to do!”_

John can’t help letting out another sharp little laugh, his brows going up incredulously. “No, Jacob, _you_ still don’t get it. This is _my_ fucking test! _Mine!”_ he sneers, jabbing a finger into his own chest and baring teeth at his older brother. “She is _my_ key to the Gates. _I_ bring her to Atonement, _I_ cleanse her! You and—and _Rachel_ , all you’ve done is impede _my_ progress! Every single bit of ground I have clawed to gain, the two of you have _ripped out from under me!”_

Jacob scoffs loudly, bows his head and smacks the heel of his hand to his brow as if the very thought pains him. “Christ, John, will you listen to yourself? You are doing _exactly_ what you promised you weren’t gonna do—I told Joe I was going to protect you-!” 

_“For fuck’s sake_ —I am not a child anymore! I know you have some misplaced sense of guilt over what happened to us, but I don’t need your _protection!_ I need you to _stay out of my way!_ I have spent every waking moment turning Joseph’s words over and over, and the _only_ way she comes to him...is through _me_. Do you understand?” 

Jacob finally raises his head, eyes searching his brother for...something. Some shred of the man who’d almost been. Past the abuse, the trauma, the drugs and sex and whatever other sordid shit he’d gotten up to in his twenties; past the heavy dogma their brother had so easily drawn him back into. 

Jacob doesn’t know if Joseph actually speaks to God. Can’t quite place the same confidence in that divine mystery bullshit that John seems to do easily; trading one set of fixations for another, more like, though Jacob has kept that particular thought to himself for a decade. 

This isn’t what was supposed to happen. He isn’t supposed to have this hot, coiled knot of anger squeezing his chest because of his baby brother. They had come together under Joseph’s vision and the banner of his Project and made each other a promise that they would never be separated again. That they would stand as a united front against anyone who would seek to cut them down or separate them.

And John is practically _begging_ this irksome, worthless little deputy to do just that. 

“Are you tryin’ to _fuck_ her…?” Jacob suddenly asks, leaning forward once more and leveling his finger up. “John - don’t you even think about lyin’ to me - is that what all this bullshit is about!?” 

John straightens up, a smug expression all but masking his former rage as he crosses his tattooed arms. He eyes Jacob up and down, assessing for a moment before answering the question. “I wouldn’t say there was very much _trying_ involved, actually…”

His smile unconsciously widens at the bewildered look that flashes across Jacob’s weathered features. For a moment, John thinks he can see all the five stages of grief passing across his brother’s face before his expression hardens once more. 

“She may be abhorrent in practically every sense of the word, but _don’t mistake me, brother,”_ John continues pointedly slow, voice lowered, leaning in once more. “The way we fit together - like she was made for me - that’s when I knew it was all happening for a reason. That’s when all those vexatious little pieces of the puzzle _clicked_ into place.” He reaches up, snaps his fingers to accentuate his point. 

“That is when I realized how blind I’d been, _thinking_ I’d been weak, _thinking_ I’d been giving in to my own sin, when in reality...it all had its purpose. It wasn’t just lust—it was all part of the plan. Now, I don’t want to fight with you, Jacob, but I am _imploring_ you to let me finish taking care of this on my own. She _will_ be ours, but showing her the path - _gutting_ her of all those demons she carries - that is _my_ responsibility!”

Jacob watches him with a weary kind of concern, eyes narrowed. He’s seen John in bouts of frenzied mania before, but it was never quite like this. “John,” he sighs heavily, “shut up and listen to me. Get the fuck out of my armory and go down to the compound and talk to Joseph. _Now_. Before you get it in your head to go chasing after that little mongrel for any reason other than to put a bullet in her...”

John blinks, straightening up once more as a wave of cool placidity sweeps away the last of the outrage from moments before. He smooths a hand down the front of his vest, feeling the little bump of every button sliding against the skin of his palm. “You know, that might be the first worthwhile thing you’ve said to me thus far. Perhaps I _should_ go explain to the Father just what his visions actually mean, since _I_ seem to have reached the answer before he did.” 

John turns on his heel before Jacob even has time to be taken aback by his statement, throwing a loose wave over his shoulder as he heads for the infirmary door. “Rest up, brother! After all, we’ve still got a Collapse to prepare for!”

. . .

“Have you ever stopped and looked at how your life’s turned out? I mean...what you’ve actually _done_ with it, you know?”

Diana’s attention is drawn away from the shore, eyes pulled sluggishly from shadows she can only just make out. Strange shapes move and writhe behind the fog, seeming to keep pace with the little rowboat as it carries them along. 

Cameron Burke is looking at her. He’s rowing, but the strokes are languid; the current seems to be doing most of his work for him. He’s still in his tactical gear from the night of the failed arrest, but his demeanor is markedly different from what she seems to remember. 

“I mean, we live these mundane lives, just...doing what someone else tells us to do. Everybody thinks they have free will, but, c’mon—when’s the last time you did something that wasn’t required? _Demanded?”_

Diana tilts her head, trying to make sense of the Marshal’s words. Half-formed thoughts flow through her mind the same way the river flows by and around them; by the time her synapses fire and try to make a connection, any spark of recognition is already well out of reach, washed away in the current. Though more than a few of those fleeting notions bore memories of heady, spiced cologne and tattooed fingers digging into her skin. The Resistance has demanded so much of her, but _that_ decision had been all her own, in spite of whatever consequences it may yet bring about. 

“Nah, rook, we don’t live our lives. We live _theirs_. And we think we have free will, but that is just a lie; an illusion.” Burke scoffs, shaking his head sagely. “Oh man, I am so done with that. I am done with being the yes man. I am done with being the errand boy. And I am done with being the garbage collector...”

Diana exhales slowly. She stops trying to listen to Burke altogether when a brilliant flash illuminates the horizon behind him. Even through the thick haze of fog the colors seem to ripple out, bright white to hellfire red in the blink of an eye as an ominous rumbling echoes around them. It looks like a mushroom cloud, like the explosion she’d witnessed last time she’d been dragged into this fairytale hellscape. 

“Because...if _that_ is real life, then what is the point...?”

Fear races up through her; sharp enough to cut through the murky, hopeless serenity of the Bliss. It’s a fierce gut reaction; she doesn’t want to watch the world die again, doesn’t want to witness Burke’s flesh reaching flashpoint, nor his bones charring and vaporizing.

“Don’t you want to be _happy,_ deputy?” 

He lets go of one of the oars, completely oblivious to what’s occurring behind him; reaches forward and brushes his fingers against her arm and when her eyes fly back to meet his she retaliates instinctively at what she sees. Before her addled brain can even catch up to her body, she’s shouldered him off so roughly that the boat pitches under the force of the movement. 

A squawk of fear claws its way up out of her throat as she tries to scramble away from the horror sat in front of her, tumbling from the thwart she’d been seated upon when her weight shifts too much too suddenly. Mindlessly reaching a hand out to steady herself against nothing, she tips the boat in a matter of seconds. 

The river is cold and it sucks the breath from her lungs, shocking her already addled system. She inhales water, choking and struggling desperately to find whichever way is up, whichever way will bring her back to breathable air. 

It wasn’t the Marshal anymore.

_It was John._

And it looked like he’d been shot point blank in the face.

The only way she’d known it was him was that stupid motherfucking coat. She doesn’t even have time to wonder how he’d somehow managed to ask her a question with most of his jaw obliterated, looking like a ghoul from some old George Romero film. 

She kicks her legs furiously, panic giving way to terror when it seems to prove a futile effort. She can feel things brushing against her, grabbing at her and stifling her kicks and pulling her in the wrong direction. All she can think of are hands and claws belonging to creatures out of some Stygian nightmare before the lack of oxygen finally swallows her up into blessed darkness.

. . .

Diana is mildly upset when she comes to being dragged across the ground after an indeterminate amount of time. It might have been her own hacking coughs and desperate gasping that hurtled her back into consciousness, or the fact that she’s utterly freezing, _or_ the fact that she’s being manhandled so awkwardly. 

“Oh, those friends of yours have done it now, rook...” 

Burke. 

She grunts when she’s dropped to the dirt, pushing herself up just far enough on shaking forearms so that she can puke up all the water she’d swallowed. 

Diana wipes the back of a hand across her mouth, tries to catch her breath. She stares hard at the ground because she doesn’t know what she’ll see if she looks up at the Marshal. 

_“S’it really you?”_ she slurs through her teeth, distantly surprised that she can actually form the words at all. 

She hears Burke scoff above her, and then she’s grabbed underneath her arms and hauled to her feet. “‘Course it’s me. Come on––we need to get to the jail.”

She frowns, swaying in his grasp. “Where’s Faith...?”

“Probably already on her way. We’ve gotta get there first,” he explains, keeping his hands on her, making sure she can stand on her own.

“The jail... _s’miles away,”_ she croaks incredulously, brows furrowed in confusion. 

Burke shakes his head, then nods toward the forested slope above them as he starts tugging her in that direction.

She stumbles along in his grasp, letting him pull her into the treeline. He seems to be acting more like his normal self, and she can’t help but wonder if they’ve somehow escaped the Bliss. The way he’s so determined makes her vaguely recall the night of the arrest, and the notion settles in her mind that he must be intending to get them back to rejoin the group, to help defend the jail from Faith’s retaliation. 

Time swims, meaningless and obscure; she has no idea how long it’s been since she was split up from Grace and the others. No idea how long she was with him in the Bliss. No idea how long she’d been drowning before he somehow pulled her from Faith’s own River Styx. 

The trek up the slope warms her somewhat, brings a bit more coherent thought into her scrambled mind. “The statue?” she hisses through still-chattering teeth, arms wrapped tight around herself.

Burke glances back at her through the darkness as they clear the trees and emerge out onto the road. “Completely fucking destroyed. That’s why we need to hurry.” 

She frowns. It’s good, she thinks, that Nora and the boys accomplished their mission. But her stomach drops nonetheless, other memories boiling up to the surface and crowding for her attention. She’s still too uninhibited to realize she’s not supposed to be concerned. “Was—was John here? Is he…?”

“John? John _Seed?_ What––look, Baker,” he huffs curtly, “I need you to get your goddamn head straight _. Faith_ is the only one you should be thinking about.” 

Burke quickens his pace when the jail looms into view up ahead. It looks quiet. No sounds of gunfire, no alarms being raised. 

He is the one who hails the guards up on the wall when they get close, gaining them entry into the Cougars’ stronghold with little fuss when someone shines a spotlight down to identify them. 

It must be somewhere in the very early hours of the morning, because the jail is oddly quiet at their return. Only a few people out there on the wall, not much of anyone milling around inside. The tension finally starts to drain from Diana with the return to familiar surroundings. Burke makes his way inside with some purpose in mind, leaving the others behind to wonder among themselves how Diana had managed to remove him from Faith’s clutches. 

It’s like a dream. She struggles to get her head straight, just like he’d told her to do. Distantly she feels indignation at herself for using _him_ of all people as some sort of an anchor, but she has enough presence of mind to know that she’s still royally fucked up; she can’t bear the thought of being exposed to the others as she is, and he’s clearly not stopping to wake any of the people curled up sleeping wherever they’ve found space. She simply follows, hoping wherever he’s leading them is somewhere she can sleep all this shit off. 

Virgil Minkler awakes with a start where he’s fallen asleep at his desk, jumping up when Burke throws open the door to the former warden’s office. He’s startled for a few seconds until the relief settles in and he starts haranguing them about what their current status is. 

Burke reaches for the service pistol holstered at his hip. Virgil doesn’t even get to finish asking the Marshal what the hell he thinks he’s doing; the shot rings out, deafening in the small space, sending the mayor careening to the floor, whimpering and clutching weakly at the hole that’s suddenly opened in his chest.

Burke turns back to the door and slams it shut, turning the lock before shouldering past her toward the control panel that overlooks the cell block. He takes only a few seconds to peruse all the switches before reaching out and flipping a few.

Diana’s breath catches in her throat. She looks at Virgil wide-eyed, disbelieving, before her gaze flies back to the Marshal. “What— _what the fuck did you do-!?”_

_“Who just opened the gate again!?”_

_“Oh, shit-!”_

_“Angels! There’s fuckin’ Angels out there!”_

_“They’re tryin’ to come inside-!”_

Diana stumbles back as far from Burke as she can get until her back hits the door. She winces at the cacophony suddenly coming from outside, clenches her jaw when Burke fires several more rounds into the switchboard, rendering it unusable. 

_“Do you know what hubris is?”_

The shattering realization finally dawns upon Diana, a violent contrast to the soft whisper that sounds like it just came from directly behind her ear. They were never coming back to the jail to help keep Faith out; they came back to open it up wide and _let her in_.

Green-tinged fog starts seeping into the office from the seams around the door, bringing with it that sickly sweet, acrid smell that makes her sinuses tingle. 

_“Arrogance before the Gods…”_

Diana can feel her own pulse speeding up. She blinks fast, trying to clear her swimming vision; presses a hand back against the door to feel for the lock with fingers that tremble from more than just lingering cold. 

_“The Greeks saw it as a dangerous form of pride that invoked the goddess Nemesis, who would seek retribution…”_

The sound of gunfire reverberates through the building, accompanied by screams, crashes and bangs. Diana considers running for the open doorway just on the other side of the office - no more than twelve feet in front of her - but Burke’s got his pistol trained on her now; she’d be stupid to try for it. Though, with her already less-than-stellar track record for this evening, a very bitter part of her still insists she make the attempt. 

Her breathing quickens, chest rising and falling in shallow hitches. The whole jail must be filling up with Bliss at this point; the office is tinted a sickly green and she swears she can see _grass_ coming up through the floor around the periphery of her vision. 

A sudden banging on the other side of the door startles her into a blind panic and she bolts away from it, turning only to see a masked face pressed up against the glass window; feverish, clouded eyes stare in at her furiously while the Angel outside pounds relentlessly with both fists.

_“You destroyed the Father’s effigy. You sow violence wherever you tread!”_

Diana shrieks when she backs up into something, spinning around once more only to see Faith standing there barring her way, as if she’d just come in through the doorway Diana had been eyeing only moments before. The younger woman snatches her shoulders, manicured fingernails digging into Diana’s still soaking wet shirt. 

_“Rachel—Rachel! that’s your name, isn’t it?”_ Diana pleads shrilly, trying to reach up and tear the woman’s hands away with arms that suddenly feel like they’re strapped with lead weights. _“Don’t do this! Don’t—don’t you realize what you’re doing to people!? Did you really hate yourself so much that you...you let him destroy you!? Let him make you into some...some little doll, some empty little mouth-box to pacify the fucking crowd-!?”_

Faith’s eyes narrow when she hears that dead name. Her frown deepens even further at the deputy’s infuriatingly stubborn resistance to the increased dosage of Bliss she’s been exposed to.

Even though she’s an inch or so shorter than Diana, Faith exudes a potent aura of malevolence. “You still think you’re a hero? You still think violence and _cruelty_ will solve your problems? If that is the only language you choose to speak—then I will speak your language…” 

Faith turns her head to gaze at Burke with a tight, triumphant smile. He stands slack beside the sparking control panel; hasn’t moved an inch, like someone hypnotized just waiting patiently for his next set of instructions. 

“And when all of their blood is on your hands, we’ll see just how heroic you feel…” 

Diana has no choice but to follow Faith’s gaze. It’s becoming steadily harder for her to draw in a satisfying breath. Her own pulse thunders in her ears and she watches helplessly as Burke meets her gaze, raises the pistol to his own chin and pulls the trigger. 

Blood paints the windowpane behind him and he goes crashing backwards, dropping the gun and crumpling against the control panel before sliding, lifeless, to the floor. 

For a moment his face turns into John’s again, the hallucination resurfacing from back in the boat and ripping a pathetic whimper from Diana as she struggles to stay upright on her own two feet. _“John-!”_

She claps a hand over her mouth to stifle her own cries. Everything feels like slow motion. She knows deep down that she’ll be following shortly. She’s going to die in here. They’re all going to die in here.

Faith’s eyes fly back to her. She bites her lip to stop her smile from spreading wider, taking a dainty step back when the deputy collapses to her knees on the office floor. “Interesting…”

Diana wheezes. She grits her teeth, reaches out to claw at Faith with what little control she has left of herself. 

Faith simply tuts, tucking her hands behind her back and easily evading the deputy’s grasp, dancing away before stopping to extend one bare leg and kick Diana to the floor. 

_“I am that goddess and this is my retribution,”_ she hisses, leaning down to hover over Diana. “If you refuse to walk into our Garden - if you insist on _spoiling_ our efforts - then you deserve no place beside our Father. You deserve no mercy. And my _dear brother_ will just have to live with that…” 


	30. Cut Ya Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell ya God Almighty’s gonna cut ya down
> 
> Tell ya God Almighty’s gonna cut ya down
> 
> \- Eli Paperboy Reed, Cut Ya Down

Nora, Sharky and Hurk are already on their way back to the jail in a stolen car when they catch the garbled distress call that comes in over the radios. 

Earlier in the night, after they’d cleared the remaining Peggies from Joseph’s monument and made their way inside to start planting explosives, Grace Armstrong had contacted them with troubling news. At some point while the other team had been storming the Jessop Conservatory, they’d lost sight of the deputy and she had vanished. 

Nora and her companions agreed to head back to the jail while Grace and the others stayed to search for Diana, promising they’d get in touch if she’d somehow ended up back at the Cougars’ stronghold in the meantime.

_This_ call, however, is mostly ear-splitting feedback and what sounds like gunfire, but they hear enough to catch the gist of what’s happening.

The Cougars are under attack.

Faith finally breached the gates. 

All three of them had already been anxious, but this is enough to send Nora into a full-blown panic. She’d always known the jail wasn’t impenetrable, but she’d left Shaun back there in the care of Whitehorse and the other Resistance members despite that knowledge.

She pitches forward, wraps her hands in a tight-knuckle grip around the edge of the driver’s seat where Sharky sits in front of her. “You need to get us back there _right now.”_

Sharky gives a curt nod of his head, shifting the old standard into fifth gear and making the engine growl as he picks up speed on the darkened road.

. . .

John's satellite phone is ringing off the hook. He can hear it before he even reaches his truck, parked haphazardly just outside the entrance to Jacob’s armory. That line is exclusively for emergencies or for conversations too delicate to be had over the open airwaves; hearing it ringing sends a lance of unease straight up his spine. 

He picks up his pace, a distinct feeling of unquiet making the corner of his mouth tick down. He throws open the driver’s side door and leans in over the seat, yanking the phone from where he’d placed it in the dashboard cup holder. 

“John,” he announces into the receiver curtly, glancing down at his watch to check the time. 

2:28 a.m. 

Another sleepless night to add to the list. The most expensive eye creams, anti-aging gels, cleansers and detoxifiers won’t do shit with a schedule like the one he’s kept of late.

_“Brother John,”_ comes a feverish, breathy whisper from the other end, immediately grabbing his attention. 

“Sister Natalie,” he acknowledges as he clambers inside the vehicle. “News from the Henbane-?”

_“Yes. The deputy–we...we’ve stormed the jail, got her and the other sinners pinned, but-”_

His spy in Faith’s ranks - because Jacob can’t be the only one allowed to practice such underhanded tactics - makes a startled noise and goes quiet as sounds of gunfire echo over the line. John can hear her breathing heavier, like she’s jogging or running, presumably trying to get somewhere safe. 

He hastily starts the truck, eyes narrowing as he wills her to keep talking. “But _what-?”_

_“I think Faith is going to kill her-”_

John blinks, unable to stop his mouth from turning up in a vicious snarl. 

_“I’m coming,”_ he ends the call without another word, throws the truck into reverse and burns rubber backing it up and swinging it out onto the old road. 

He will not entertain the possibility of letting that happen; as much as he wishes he was anywhere close to his plane, he’ll have to make do with pushing the shitty communal P.E.G. truck as fast as it will go. 

John tries to tell himself this is not the will of the Father, that God will not let Diana be taken from him; but he knows that is simply no longer true. 

Whirlwinds clatter inside his head as he speeds down the dark country roads, leaving the mountains behind. He should have tried harder to air his grievances out with Joseph before things got so out of control. As it stands, it’s obvious now that his siblings have been communicating and making decisions without him. They think he’s a liability, a fuck-up; a pathetic wretch who never fully turned his back on his own despair, nor his addictions, nor the yawning black void that made its home in him all those years ago. 

And in many ways, they are right. But he’s _tried,_ goddamn it. 

And if he can succeed where the others couldn’t - if he can bring Diana to Atonement, if he can _save her––_ there’s still a chance he can save himself. Rachel is finally showing her hand and he will do whatever is necessary to stop her, to ensure that she knows her place once and for all.

She paints a pretty picture of what a devoted of the Father should look like; almost too pretty. Claiming to have beaten her own addictions via the healing powers of her Bliss, sating her pathetic craving for love and devotion by raising an army of braindead slaves, minds decimated from overexposure to it. 

She is not _blood,_ not like him, no matter how much the Father loves her. 

She is replaceable. Just like all the others.

. . .

The jail is in complete pandemonium. There are a few fires burning away outside, a handful of bodies littering the parking lot and the area around the main gate. The fighting apparently hasn’t ceased since they got that call; gunshots resound from inside the old building, echoing into the night. 

Nora, Hurk and Sharky spill from their stolen car, fumbling with their weapons as they start approaching. They can see overturned Bliss barrels rolling in the breeze, still sluggishly spilling the last of the noxious gas they’d contained. 

_“Fuck,”_ Nora mutters, picking up her pace as the panic chews at her heels. “I have to find Shaun. He must be so scared–Jesus fucking Christ, I should’ve known something like this would happen-”

“Hey, shorty, we’ll get him. Don’t you worry,” Sharky speaks up, starting into a jog to catch up with her. “You got the sexiest outlaw in all of Hope County watchin’ your back, so…”

“Don’t leave me hangin’, Sharky,” she pleads through her teeth after a few moments of awkward silence as she makes her way through the gates, eyes flying back and forth to check their periphery. “Tell me somethin’ good, huh?” 

“So, uh, there’s like...no way we’re _not_ gonna find him,” Sharky replies, following Nora as she leads them to the left, away from the main entrance. “You ‘n me? We’re like Dom ‘n Letty in Fast and Furious, you know? Not that we’re married—but, I mean, we _could_ be one day, and that’d be pretty fuckin’ rad, so-”

He doesn’t get to finish his thought. A frenzied scream announces one of Faith’s Angels careening at them from around the corner of the building, beelining straight for Sharky, no doubt attracted by the way his voice carries. 

“Oh _shit-!”_ Sharky’s eyes go wide before the madman tackles him to the ground like a linebacker with a hard thud. 

“Hey, _NOT COOL-”_

Before Hurk even gets the chance to retrieve his machete from where it’s strapped to his belt, Nora’s already taking her shot; she puts a bullet clean through the Angel’s temple before he gets the chance to start flaying Sharky with his ragged fingernails, the only weapons he apparently has.

The Angel grunts, lurching forward, almost making the scene look morbidly romantic. 

Pallid, cloudy green eyes widen for a moment, staring down through him before Sharky suddenly comes to his senses, kicking his heels into the ground and scrambling to get out from underneath what’s very soon to be a corpse.

Nora and Hurk both move to pull the body aside and help Sharky up, and soon after all three are moving again, making their way through high chain-link fencing toward the eastern entrance to confront whatever chaos awaits them. 

The fog of Bliss is the first thing they hit, and like a brick wall at that. Hurk immediately starts sneezing; big, loud, braying ones that have Nora clenching her jaw, praying it won’t alert a cavalcade of Peggies and Angels to their presence. The sound inside the jail is thunderous, though, and she needn’t have worried; screams and gunshots echo through and into the small vestibule they’ve paused in.

She’d been exposed to enough of the Bliss when she was still playing at being a member of Eden’s Gate; spent a good deal of her time here in the Henbane and developed a fairly keen tolerance to the stuff, unlike her parents. Though her head immediately starts feeling airier, Nora motions for the other two to follow her deeper into the building, keeping her finger on the trigger of her pistol.

They immediately enter a narrow hallway that funnels them to the left and through an open security gate. As Nora continues, she catches sight of the cell block through another doorway just ahead. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling flicker ominously, painting the scene in splashes of intermittent light and darkness. 

She makes her way cautiously through, into what appears to be the heart of the fighting, Sharky and Hurk close at her heels. There are bodies everywhere, both alive and dead, and the coppery smell of blood is almost enough to cut through the sickly-sweet stench of the Bliss. She nearly trips over a corpse, stumbling and backing herself up against the wall as Sharky grabs her elbow to steady her. 

“C’mon, chica,” he mutters close to her ear so that she can hear him over the din of the fighting. Sharky tugs on her arm, hastily leading her into the concealing darkness of the closest open cell, where hopefully no one will notice them. 

Hurk doesn’t follow; his attention is drawn toward the other side of the prison ward, where a distinctive scream pierces the air from a cell that appears to be locked. There’s a Peggie standing there leering and rattling his gun against the bars, and no wonder the screamer sounds so pissed off—it’s Jess. 

_“Let me the fuck out you fuckin’ shitbrain Peggie fuck!”_ Jess throws herself at the bars, baring her teeth at the jeering cultist just on the other side. _“I’ll tear your throat out with my fucking teeth!”_

“Lord _almighty,_ you got some kinda mouth, ain’t you?” the Peggie sneers before leveling his SMG at her. He glances into the next cell over where Staci Pratt stands with fists clenched tightly around the bars, eyeballing him with an absolutely eerie expression. 

The cultist sneers. “Your little friend always so fuckin’ rude-?” 

_“Go on and shoot me, you fuckin’ limp-dick coward! When Joseph took away your sins, he take your fuckin’ balls too?!”_

The cultist’s gaze flies back to her, his mildly humored expression turning to something menacing. 

Before he gets the chance to put his finger on the trigger, Hurk’s machete embeds firmly into the back of his neck. He sputters for a moment, arching backwards with a strangled yowl.

Hurk plucks the SMG from his hands before he crumples to the floor, glancing up at Jess with a shit-eating grin. “Hercules to the rescue, amigo!” 

Hurk leans down to search the cultist’s pockets, coming up with a bundle of keys he’s fairly certain belongs to Sheriff Whitehorse. “Here I was hopin’ I’d finally get a chance to use that bad Larry,” he mumbles, pleased with himself, before straightening back up to free his companions.

. . .

“How the fuck am I gonna find him, Sharky?” Across the room, Nora paces like a wounded animal inside the dark cell, eyes locked on the scene just outside; searching the floor for a small body in the confusion of flickering light, listening desperately for the sound of Shaun’s voice somewhere in the din. 

Sharky follows her gaze for a moment, stress painting uncharacteristic lines between his brows. He huffs out a breath, unsure of just how they’re supposed to find a kid in the middle of all this shit. All he knows is they need to move fast. And the way the Bliss is fucking with his senses, making his head feel like a balloon full of helium certainly isn’t helping him make any critical decisions. “We just gotta, uh…”

“I don’t even see Virgil, or Tracey or fucking _anybody.”_ She runs a hand back through her hair, frustration and rage starting to drown out the panic. “This place is huge, he could be anywhere––he could be in the vents, someone could have _recognized_ him. Fuck, I swear to God, if they took him I will send Joseph fucking Seed straight to hell myself-!”

_“Mom-!?”_

Nora’s head snaps to the side the same second as Sharky’s at the small voice that comes from the far side of the double cell. 

_“Shaun!”_ She’d been seconds away from proverbially rolling up her shirtsleeves and heading out into the mess to look for him, psyching herself up to mow down anyone who stood in her way. 

Instead she jams her pistol into the waistband of her jeans, crosses the length of the cell in a few long strides to the bed attached to the far wall. She drops to one knee to take him into her arms as soon as he crawls out from beneath it and then just as quickly pulls back, swiping the hair from his eyes and running hands down his face, over his shoulders and arms, checking to make sure he’s unhurt. 

“Oh, baby, I’m so glad you’re okay,” she babbles, pulling Shaun back in to squeeze him tightly as the relief floods through her. _“Are_ you okay? Oh God, I’m so sorry I left you, I never should’ve done that-”

Shaun breaks down as soon as he’s back in her arms, clinging to her like his life depends on it, barely even registers the barrage of questions she throws at him.

She feels a hand tapping her arm insistently, glances back over her shoulder to see Sharky. He nods his head back the way they came. 

“Feels like a perfect time to amscray, yeah?”

Nora’s brow furrows even as she nods her head in agreement. “What about the others-?”

Sharky glances back out into the cell block, looking worried, but his mind was already made up long before she asked. “You still need somebody watchin’ your back, Nor. I ain’t leavin’ you now.”

. . .

John shoulders open the jail’s main door, sweeping inside with a dozen of his Chosen at his heels, an automatic rifle held firm against his chest. He’s got a respirator mask covering the lower half of his face, as do his Chosen. Though Joseph seems remarkably immune to the effects of the Bliss, neither John nor Jacob seem to have that same luxury. He can’t be too careful.

He’d called his men from the satellite phone while he was driving. Told them the herald of the Henbane was acting out against the will of the Father. Told them immediate intervention was required. 

A little white lie to save the deputy’s life. 

“Spread out! Tell her faithful to _stand down!_ Anyone finds the deputy, I want to be the first to know! And if the Angels are uncooperative...kill them.”

“Yes, John!” A chorus of affirmatives meets his statement before the team splinters off in different directions.

. . .

Jess and Hurk team up to help take out the Peggies still assaulting their comrades in the cell block. It’s obvious they’ve lost more than a few of their own, but there is no time to stop and mourn the fallen. They help where they can, making their way up the stairs to the second floor catwalk, both completely unaware of who else is even on the premises. 

“Sheriff!” Jess calls when she sees Whitehorse at the far end of the walkway, breaking into a jog to get to him. He’s there with Tracey, but something’s not right. 

He’s grappling with her, clearly overpowering her and _pushing_ Tracey toward the railing like he’s going to throw her off. 

_“Earl!”_ Jess breaks into a full run, Hurk not too far behind her, and now she can see that Whitehorse has his hands around Tracey’s throat.

_“Fuck,”_ she hisses, absently wondering if the Bliss is making her see shit that isn’t really happening. 

She takes her chance, though, crashing into the sheriff hard enough to knock him off his feet and loosen his grip on Tracey. The poor girl wheezes, falling back against the railing and almost collapsing before Hurk comes up on Jess’s heels and catches her. 

Jess wrestles with the sheriff, pulling back enough to see just how clouded over his eyes are; he’s Blissed to hell, clawing at her and trying to push her off. And despite his age, he’s stronger than her, half-crazed and fueled by the effects of the drug. 

_“Hurk! Help-!”_

. . .

John follows a few of his Chosen to the left, through an open security gate, stopping at the first door he comes to in the narrow hallway while they continue on further. He reaches out with one hand to try the handle, finding it locked, but there’s a pane of glass set in the door that he leans forward and peers through. 

What he sees sets his blood boiling. 

Faith is in there, pretty as a picture, perched up on a desk with her bare legs swinging gently. She has a small, satisfied little smile on her stupidly cherubic face, eyes turned down toward the deputy, who John sees writhing on the floor - no, _convulsing;_ it looks like Diana’s having a fucking seizure.

Well, that confirms that the deputy’s not dead—yet.

John grits his teeth so hard they might crack. He takes a step back from the door, reaches up to run his palm down over his mouth and realizes he can’t with the respirator, huffs raggedly and quickly ticks through his list of options. It looked like there was an open doorway at the opposite side of the room, but he doesn’t know the floor plan of the old jail, can’t afford to waste time running around in this godforsaken rat maze trying to find the other entrance to the old Warden’s office. 

Shooting around the lock is out of the question; it would take a number of bullets to do that, and any one of them could hit Diana. 

He tightens his grip on the rifle, reins himself in as best he can, steps back up to the door and bangs a fist against it, hard. _“Faith!”_

Her head shoots up, brows knitting at the disturbance. It seems to take a moment for Faith to comprehend what she’s seeing, and then that small smile is back in force. She hops down from the desk, steps daintily around the deputy and approaches the door with a saunter that sets his teeth on edge all over again. 

_“John?”_ she questions him through the door with a little laugh, incredulous. “My goodness. What are you doing here?” 

“Stopping you from making an _incredibly_ idiotic mistake,” he urges, pressing himself even closer to the door. “She’s not supposed to die, _you know that.”_

Faith blinks, tilts her head slightly. “The Father asked me to help her see. I tried, John.” She pauses, glances back at the deputy over her shoulder. “But, you know as well as I do that the Bliss will weed out those who aren’t worthy.” 

She turns saddened eyes back in his direction and he sees right through her bullshit. “Open the door. _Let me in._ We can figure this out, give her something—adrenaline, or physostigmine. I know you’ve got antidotes on you, you _always_ do. She is _supposed to be with us!”_

“She had her chance, John. _You_ had your chance. But now we need to do what’s best for our family…”

. . .

Sharky follows Nora and Shaun back the way they’d come, through the eastern entrance of the jail. They hear renewed commotion starting up behind them just as the exit comes into view, but both adults have to make themselves willfully ignore it. 

He turns dutifully to watch their backs as the other two slip out the door before following them out into the night. They all pause outside, breathing in deep lungfuls of clean air, Nora and Sharky both mentally scrambling to figure out what their next course of action is. 

“Back to the car?” Sharky asks quickly, meeting her gaze to gauge what it is she has in mind.

She nods, her hands still tight on Shaun’s shoulders. She hasn’t let him go since they found each other. “We weren’t supposed to meet for another few days, but my friend - Megan - I think she’s...she said there was a house not too far from the access road out to Dutch’s island,” Nora explains as they start moving again. “Some place the cult had cleared out. I’ve got the address somewhere-”

Sharky puts a hand on her shoulder as he walks beside them, still checking behind every few seconds. “Yeah, that’s a good start, anyway. We’ll figure the rest out on the road.”

. . .

Hurk manages to get Tracey seated at least semi-comfortably leaned up against the catwalk’s safety railing before he turns back to Jess and Whitehorse. 

“I’m comin’!” he calls, seeing that Jess is struggling to keep the sheriff pinned. He grabs up the SMG he’d nabbed from the cultist down on the lower level and suddenly pauses.

He can’t _shoot_ Sheriff Whitehorse. 

“Welp, sorry sheriff!” Hurk turns the gun around and thumps the butt of it against Whitehorse’s temple. 

Jess finally loosens her grip on the old man, peeling herself from his weakening grasp and sitting back on her heels, panting heavily. _“Fuck…”_

“He ain’t gonna arrest me for that, right? ‘Cause that was, like, _well_ within the bounds of self-defense. You’ll be my witness, right?” 

Jess looks over at him from the corner of her eye. “Yeah, Hurk,” she mutters breathlessly, “I’ll be your fuckin’ witness.” 

They both look up as the door at the end of the catwalk opens with a harsh clang, revealing a handful of armed and masked cultists. They stop, staring down at Jess and Hurk, Tracey and the incapacitated sheriff. 

The Peggie in the lead glances back at his companions. “What are we supposed to do with sinners?” 

“John didn’t say anything about that,” another replies, voice lowered like he isn’t even sure if they should be discussing this in front of them. 

“He just said to find the deputy-”

The one in the lead turns back to them, raises his rifle to point somewhere in the middle between the Resistance members. _“Where’s the deputy!?”_

. . .

“Open the door, Faith. _I just want to talk,”_ John implores as evenly as he can, shifting his stance so that he can get another glimpse of Diana. She’s stopped convulsing. Stopped moving altogether.

John closes his eyes momentarily, fist clenched so tight against the door he thinks he may be drawing blood where his nails dig into the flesh of his palm. 

He draws back and slams his palm against the door violently, gaze flicking back to Faith. She doesn’t even flinch at the sudden outburst, simply stands there on the other side looking at him with those lying doe eyes of hers. 

Diana could very well be dying. Well and truly, this time. And Faith is just standing there, _gloating._ He knows she sees this as a victory over him, knows she’s rubbing it in his face with all of her wistful sadness and patronizing bullshit.

“I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to answer it truthfully.”

_“What?”_ he hisses. 

“What is she to you, John? Are you only concerned for her because she was supposed to be some sort of...trophy? This was never a competition. It was never something that was supposed to wound your pride. And yet-”

“And yet you are _killing her,”_ he butts in fervently, all but trembling with indignation at her utter lassitude. He doesn’t want her to know he’s scared; fucking terrified, actually. But Faith seems determined to draw the admission from him, lasso it out on golden thread that she can spin into her victory against him. 

_“What do you want me to say!? Hm!? Congratulations,_ dear sister, _you’ve wounded my pride! Is that it!? You want me to admit my transgressions!? Admit my greed, my envy!? Admit that you’re succeeding in every way I’ve failed!?”_

Faith frowns at him through the glass, eyes searching his, and he can’t fucking stand the pity he sees. He heaves out an anguished sigh, slams his palm against the door one more time for good measure. She knows she’s won, knows how utterly pathetic this makes him look. 

He’d spent so long caring for nothing and no one with the sole exception of his brothers. The deputy should be one in a long line of the same, and yet she is something else entirely. They’ve wormed under each other’s skin, forged some visceral connection despite how they’ve both fought it tooth and claw. How they’ve fought each other. They’re both haunted, brittle temples built of bone and sinew, only coming alive when they come together. 

He needs her. It doesn’t matter what else happens, he needs her _alive_ and he needs her _with him._ They will walk into the new world together. They _have to._

“She is...she’s more than just a fucking _trophy,”_ he grits out, wetting his lips behind the mask after a pregnant pause. “She is _...important_ to me. Do you understand that?” 

Faith’s brow knits once more. She casts another glance back at the deputy. “This is God’s will, John. I’m sorry. I can...I’ll let you in if you’d like to say goodbye.”

_"Fine,_ yes. Yes,” he breathes, acquiescing to her condescending little display faster than he‘s remotely comfortable with. 

She thinks she’s doing him some small kindness before running along to Joseph to _tattle,_ to tear him down several more notches, to solidify her own position as the Father’s favorite. His words taste like bitter ash on his tongue. “Please.” 

Faith bows her head and a few moments later he hears the metallic click of the lock unlatching. 

As soon as she opens the door he’s shoving his way inside. He sees that federal marshal, Burke, lying in a pool of his own congealing blood just to his left, but that barely concerns him. 

Diana is just to the right. Her eyes are open but unseeing; corneas completely clouded over, tinged sickly green. The froth at the corners of her lips makes him think briefly of sea foam. 

He drops to one knee, sets his gun on the floor and reaches out to press his fingers against her pulse. He almost can’t feel it with the way his own thunders through him, but it’s there; weak and slow and tremulous as it is. Her skin is even more pallid than usual, clammy to the touch.

He knows an overdose when he sees one. 

“This is the way it ends, John. I hope you can see that, perhaps, it’s for the best. We don’t need her.”

John takes his hand back, swipes the bottom of his coat to the side and stands, rounding on her. _“Where is the antidote?”_

Faith takes a few steps away from the door, gently presses it shut behind her. “It doesn’t matter. Even if you could save her, it wouldn’t change anything…”

_“Stop playing games,”_ he hisses, fists clenching with unspent agitation at his sides. “I know what you’re doing! _You_ don’t get to decide how this ends!” 

A brief smile curls her lips. _“Poor John._ You’re afraid, aren’t you? The Father warned you what would happen if you couldn’t rein yourself in, and now? You couldn’t take a _firm enough_ hand with her and so someone else had to do it for you. Someone else had to clean up your mess.” 

“You pathetic... _fucking...upstart!”_ John lunges at her, seeing red. His patience is gone, replaced with the lethal fury he’s been trying to hold in check til now. 

She’s purposefully been letting precious seconds tick by, withholding the potent drugs he _knows_ she has in her possession. She always carries them, just in case one of her new converts or even one of her faithful accidentally has a particularly bad reaction. 

Faith ducks behind the desk, snatching up a table lamp and hurling it at him to keep him back, but he easily dodges the projectile. It smashes against the control panel on the other side of the room just as he manages to grab her by a fistful of her lacy dress.

She yelps when he tugs her forward, banging her hip into the edge of the desk painfully. He leans over even further and snatches her by the hair at the back of her head with his other hand, bringing her in close over the top of the desk. “You think _you_ can dictate what’s going to happen here _to me!?”_

_“John-!”_

_“Shut up!”_ He slams her head down on the desk with surprising strength before grabbing her by the shoulders and dragging her across the length of it, throwing her down to the floor. 

She scrambles back toward the wall, finally looking as scared as she should be, and that only fuels him on more. He stalks over, cracking his tattooed knuckles on the way, bends down and pins her with a knee buried into her abdomen.

_“You will never come back from this!”_ Faith cries out, reaching up to try and tear the respirator from his face while her other hand quickly delves into the breast of her dress.

He hastily pulls back, but not before she succeeds in ripping his mask off.

_“You will never be good enough!”_ she screams, producing a small glass vial from presumably one of many hidden pockets. “You will _always_ be a disappointment to him and the Gates of Eden will _always_ be shut to you!” 

_“I said shut up!”_ John swipes the vial from her hand before she has a chance to use it on him, leans forward and elbows her head straight back into the wall. 

It’s enough to daze her, at the very least. He briefly watches her eyes rolling back before he absently pockets the vial and slides a hand up under the hem of her dress, feeling for the syringes she keeps strapped to her thigh like some people might keep a knife.

John finds what he’s looking for quickly enough, yanks one out and turns, scrambling back to Diana on hands and knees. He takes the safety tip between his teeth and yanks it off the syringe, spitting it out on the floor. 

He’s fairly certain what he’s got is adrenaline, which should bring her out of the state she’s in long enough to get her back to the bunker to be treated properly. If he’s wrong, administering physostigmine directly into her heart will kill her, but if he does nothing she’s certain to die anyway. 

He huffs out a feverish breath, sticks the syringe between his teeth so that he can use both hands to rip open the collar of her shirt. He places one palm flat against her chest and then takes the syringe and jams it into her breastbone as hard as he can, depressing the plunger.

A savage scream cuts the air just behind him and before he has time to react, a knee connects with the side of his head and sends him careening to the floor. He lands almost on top of the marshal's corpse, choking out a guttural growl. 

_“You’re a joke, John!”_ Faith hisses from above him, raising an arm to wipe away the blood trickling from her swollen nose. “Always so _proud,_ so _vain,_ always bending the rules for no one’s benefit but your own!”

John starts chuckling then, long, drawn out wheezes. He slaps a palm against the floor like what she’s just said is one of the funniest jokes he’s ever heard, barely even flinches when the broken glass from the lamp crunches beneath his skin. 

“And you...are _nothing,”_ he spits, dragging himself up from the floor with some effort. “Nothing but Joseph’s little _pet project.”_

John swipes up Burke’s discarded service pistol from the floor, swings it up and pulls the trigger. He watches her gasp for breath, watches her brow knit and her eyes widen, bares his teeth in a mirthless grin as blood blooms red across the front of her white dress. “Nothing but a sycophantic...presumptuous... _fucking brat.”_

He pulls the trigger again. And again. And again. Until the clip is empty, until Faith crumples to the floor, no longer hurling her cruel, petty little insults at him. Until her eyes are just as empty as the false identity Joseph had bestowed upon her. 

And then he tosses the gun, gets back on hands and knees with a painful grunt and makes his way back to the deputy. He pulls the syringe out of her chest, notes her stilted, wheezing breath and takes it for a good sign; certainly better than before. 

He gathers her up into his arms even as his head spins, manages to get to his feet and walks to the door, fumbling to open it. As soon as it’s unlatched he toes it open the rest of the way with one foot, slipping back out into the corridor to leave the godforsaken place behind.


	31. Codeine (Dreams)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, you hold my hand as I step into the room
> 
> And all these people, they’ll all be fading soon
> 
> Well, it’s whisper time remembered
> 
> Through armored thorns and knives
> 
> And it’s all that I’ve got left to hold onto
> 
> \- Trampled By Turtles, Codeine

_“The deputy?”_ Hurk parrots back at the Peggies, glancing over at Jess in confusion. “Even if I did know where she was, I sure as shit wouldn’t be tellin’ it to you all.” 

The lead cultist, the one who’d posed the question, furrows his brows over his respirator and looks back at his companions. 

They all shrug, appearing bewildered at the juxtaposition between what their herald had told them and what Drubman’s just said. 

He turns back, shifts on his feet and nudges the barrel of his rifle in Hurk’s direction. “Don’t lie to us, Drubman. We know she’s here.” 

Jess lets out an incredibly annoyed growl, reaching down to try and retrieve Whitehorse’s service pistol from its holster. _“Oh, fuck you!”_

The crackling of the Peggies’ radios makes her falter when John Seed’s voice unexpectedly cuts through the static. 

_“Brothers and sisters,”_ he starts, pausing with a grunt as if he’s straining somehow; there’s a clatter of some kind in the background, a slamming sound, and then he’s back. _“I’m going to need a contingent to accompany the..._ package _and I to my gate. The rest of you—back to your scheduled tasks. We’re done here.”_

. . .

_“Ah,”_ John grunts harshly, losing his patience with the nurse currently bent over before him; she’s attempting to pluck out the shards of glass still embedded in the palm of his hand with a pair of tweezers.

“Stop moving,” the older woman scolds, glancing up to give him a stern look.

John clenches his jaw and pulls his hand back, fixing her with his own glare. “That’s enough,” he hisses, tone brooking no argument. “I’ll do the rest myself. Just—check on the deputy and then leave us.” 

“Oh, you’ll do the rest yourself, will you?” she questions just as curtly, straightening up and taking a step back, dropping the bloody tweezers onto the medical tray beside him.

He cocks an eyebrow, following her warily with his eyes as she turns her back on him and moves to the gurney currently occupied by the infamous deputy. 

“I’ve dealt with worse...I can assure you.” 

“Mmhm,” she responds absently, checking Diana’s IV and the fluid level in the bag it’s connected to. “She’s as stable as she was when you made me check fifteen minutes ago. Dehydrated, but the fluids should take care of that. As long as the physostigmine keeps her from seizing again, we can start her on some benzodiazepines tomorrow. Keep her mildly sedated for a few days while the rest of the Bliss flushes out of her system.” 

“Fine,” John responds, grabbing up the tweezers. “That will be all for now, Sister Margaret.” 

The nurse leans down, lifting the deputy’s eyelids to gauge the cloudiness and dilation of each before finishing her business and turning back to him. “John—I’ve been with the Project for a long time, now…”

He tilts his head, casts his gaze back up to her as she comes forward, taking in her graying hair and modest khaki attire. “I remember. We picked you up in Kansas all those years ago,” he acknowledges, framing it almost like a question in order to see her through to her point. “You’ve been a great asset to the Project, to the Father and to me. One of our most devoted…” 

“I know. So...I feel like I’ve got to ask,” she starts, pausing to glance back at the unconscious woman, almost as if she’s wary of the deputy jumping up at any moment to rain fire down on them; like her near-death is just a clever ploy. “What’s happened to us? We knew we needed to prepare for the collapse, we built these bunkers, we brought in as many as we could, but it feels like…” 

John narrows his eyes, wary of receiving criticism even as the image of red on white hasn’t left his mind, almost like Rachel’s still mocking him even in death. She was right; no matter how hard he’s tried, deep down he knows he’s been a disappointment to his brother, to _both_ his brothers, and once this news gets out…

“It just seems like things are slipping, John. This woman...is she really worth all _this?_ I heard we lost the Father’s statue tonight, and the old Jessop place, _and_ Fall’s End—and even before that, she led that attack on the Veteran’s Center, nearly _killed_ Jacob. I know the Father said she was important to us, but-”

“You trust the Father, yes?” John suddenly asks, though he already knows the answer. 

He does not make it known that this is the very first he’s hearing about losing Fall’s End. He’s been away from the valley for _one day,_ doing damage control up north and committing atrocities in order to save the deputy’s life, and now this?

Margaret blinks. “Yes, of course…”

“And you trust me?” 

“Yes,” she nods.

“Then that is all you need, Sister Margaret. Keep that faith strong,” he tells her, unable to keep the weariness from his voice, looking back down at his blood-encrusted hand. He is acutely aware that he does not sound as sure as he should.

“We shall see this through. We will all walk through the Gates together. Even the wayward deputy...” 

Sister Margaret has always been stiff and prudish, giving off the undeniable air of an old school marm even though she’d been a practicing LPN when they’d recruited her. But she looks uncertain now. 

She clears her throat, straightens her shoulders and forces a weak smile, because she knows that’s what the Seeds like to see. “Right—you’re right. Though we may face many challenges, I know that God will protect his faithful.”

“That’s perfectly right,” John mutters, turning his focus on finishing the work she’d begun, intent on that being the end of their conversation. 

None of them know what he’s done, not yet. He intends on keeping it that way for as long as he can. Some of his Chosen who’d been there might put two and two together, but he’s fairly certain no one had actually _seen_ what happened. It could easily be blamed on the Resistance.

She takes a few steps toward the infirmary door before pausing at the threshold and turning back. “After you get yourself cleaned up, you should get some rest—I can have someone come in to watch her-”

_“No,”_ he cuts in before she can finish, yanking the tweezers away from his palm and angling his head to look over at her. “The deputy is _my_ responsibility. Sleep is no less important to you or to anyone else in this bunker.” 

He _almost_ feels bad, slipping so effortlessly behind the mask of selflessness. “This is my duty to the Father...and to the Project. And - between us, Sister - despite my best intentions for her, the deputy has indulged _wantonly_ in her sin. I fear there are those among our flock who have not yet forgiven her transgressions against us.”

Sister Margaret is silent for a few moments, seeming to weigh his words. 

It is true, after all; there are too many members of the Project who’ve lost friends and loved ones to the deputy’s thirst for blood, who’d probably be only too eager for a chance to exact retribution.

Sister Margaret finally gives him one last nod of acquiescence before slipping out through the infirmary’s heavy steel door, finally leaving him in peace. 

John’s gaze immediately slides to Diana. He’d made a point not to look while his followers were present, but now that there’s no one left to put on airs for, he can’t tear his eyes away.

He heaves out a tense sigh, sagging down in the chair, the full weight of his actions finally descending upon him. He’s been waiting with bated breath for hours now for the climactic call from Joseph, for his brother to just preternaturally _know;_ full of quietly righteous fury and disappointment, somberly pounding the final nail into his coffin, condemning him for succumbing to his sin and slaying one of their own in his wrath. 

John doesn’t even notice when he starts grinding his teeth, anger coursing up through him in a sudden and powerful wave. He’d momentarily forgotten about his wounded hand until he impulsively strikes out with it, sending the surgical tray flying from the table beside him to clatter abrasively across the floor. 

_“Ah fuck,”_ he hisses, wrenching his hand back. 

The deputy still does not stir even after that racket, and somehow this threatens to make him even more irate. He focuses on forcing heavy breaths in and out through his nose instead, bows his head, tries to quiet all of the impotent rage. 

He’d tried to play nice. Tried to play by the rules, but Rachel had always been conniving; she became direct competition for Joseph’s affection, and she worked hard to claw her way into his esteem. She was far more clever and surreptitious than people gave her credit for, and the worst part was that she had _flourished_ under Joseph’s encouragement, beaten back her demons while John himself had started indulging his once more. 

He forces out another heavy sigh, as if he can somehow expunge the rot within him with a simple exhale. He takes up the tweezers, flattening his palm to distract himself with removing the last of the glass. 

It hurts, some pieces have dug in deep; but the pain always centers him. 

He’d opened himself to Joseph, laid bare all of his ugliness once upon a time, still riding high off the exhilaration of being reunited with his long-lost brother, of being given a _purpose._ In turn, he’d given all he had to give to Joseph and to the Project. Endless funding, legal expertise, all the favors he had he’d called in to make sure that Joseph’s vision would come to fruition with as little interference as possible.

But it was never enough. He’s never completely cut out that cancer inside him, as much as he pretends, as much as he demands it from their followers. Joseph knows, said as much on a recent voicemail back at the ranch that John just can’t bring himself to delete, full of expoundings about love and his own sin coming back around to destroy him if his path doesn’t change.

He finally plucks out the last discernible shard of glass and drops the tweezers on the little table, flexes his bloody hand and casts his gaze up at the deputy once more. She is that sin, he knows it as surely as he knows the half-mangled palm he proceeds to douse in antiseptic. 

If only _cleansing one’s soul_ were so simple. 

Jacob was wrong. She is his test, his key to Eden. Somehow he knows deep in his bones that if he fails to tame her, to temper her wrath - and by extension maybe dampen his own - she will kill him; or, more likely, they’ll kill each other. Joseph had said as much. Even if Jacob doesn’t, surely _he_ must understand why John needs her alive. 

They are destined to cleanse each other, to make each other whole; they have to be. God would not have put her here in his crosshairs with such violent perspicuity if it were otherwise. 

John had maybe been hasty in admitting his dalliances with the deputy to Jacob so soon, but does Joseph know the true extent to which they’ve entangled themselves? 

Could the Father be _jealous?_ Is that why he reneged on his fervent assertions that the deputy must join them? All those times he’d preached about the lamb, the harbinger, the seal-breaker, had he been preaching with the intent that she would be his and his alone to break and mold and fill with divine purpose under the yoke of his will and the impending apocalypse? 

The thought that Diana could become another like Faith only serves to fill John with some undefinable rage. Especially because that role in their family has so auspiciously freed up in the last few hours. This, he thinks, might be the true danger now; if Diana does submit, if she pledges herself to the Project, she’ll be pledging herself to Joseph, just as they all do.

But John finds he does not want that. He wants the deputy allied to them, of course, but he also wants her all to himself. Her wrath speaks to him like nothing ever has, touches upon something inside of him, makes him feel ravenous, gluttonous, _wild_. And though she is loathe to admit it, he knows he’s struck the same nerve within her. She’ll fight and fight, bare tooth and claw all she wants, but when it comes down to the heart of the thing, when she wakes up and realizes what he’s done for her - when the collapse comes, when the time comes for her to finally _choose_ \- he sees no other path forward than the one they walk together.

. . .

Jess and Hurk don’t take much time to mull over what the fuck had happened with those Peggies; those that had burst in and questioned them had vacated the premises as quickly as they’d arrived, leaving behind nothing but confusion and one hell of a terrible mess to be sorted out. 

They get Whitehorse situated first, dragging him to a cell and locking him up to wait until the Bliss is out of his system. Tracey’s coherent by now; bloody and even more sullen than usual, but determined to tend her own wounds, bidding the others to sweep the jail and assess their losses.

Grace and her small band return not long after, the state of the place quickly leaving them as shell-shocked as everyone else. After the initial panic settles, Grace manages to pull them all together and start them in helping with cleanup, a few even taking it upon themselves to assist Dr. Lindsay with the wounded while Grace checks in with her friends.

“Thank fuck you’re back,” Jess mutters as she pulls the other woman away from the cell block.

“Obviously not soon enough—what the _fuck_ happened here, Jess?” Grace asks, distress evident in her tone now that it’s just the two of them. She’s noticed how rattled the other woman is; even though it’s a relief to see Jess back in action - clearly trying to step up and take charge in the absence of the usual crowd - the small joy she finds in that is not quite enough to cut through the overwhelming feeling of defeat permeating the place. 

The hunter shakes her head, glancing over at Grace ruefully from beneath dirty brown bangs as she pushes open a security gate. “Fuck if I know. They got in somehow - _fuckin’ Blissed out freaks_ \- I couldn’t even do shit but watch it all go down until Hurk showed up and let me and Pratt out of those fuckin’ cells-”

Grace’s brow knits, and she stops in her tracks. “Oh, shit—you were still locked up-!?”

Jess glances back, unable to hide an answering sneer as she stops further up the hallway, putting her hand out to rest on the doorknob to the old warden’s office. “Sure as fuck was—look, I ain’t mad about that,” she starts as she turns the knob to walk inside, “I get why you guys–– _oh, fuck me.”_

Grace narrows her eyes as Jess stops dead in the doorway, a fresh streak of panic lancing through her. _“What-?”_

Not getting an immediate answer, she steels herself and treks forward, shouldering in through the door beside Jess to see what it is that’s taken her so off guard. 

“Oh... _shit,”_ Grace breathes out, her gaze sweeping across the gory mess. 

Three bodies litter the floor of the small office, all languishing in congealing pools of their own blood. It’s clear at a glance that they’re all quite dead, but the question of just exactly how this happened looms over both women like a heavy storm cloud. 

Grace winces at the sight of Virgil on the other side of the desk, his worn loafers just visible sticking out from behind it before she’d shifted forward another step to see who they belonged to. That federal marshal, Burke - the one Faith had been parading around on tv so proudly - lies on the other side off to their left. And Faith herself, skin graying, eyes open and unseeing, completes the macabre display in the middle of the floor in front of them.

Jess takes a few steps forward, nudges the stiffening body with the toe of her boot. “It’s real. Holy fuck, Grace, it’s _really her-”_

Grace turns her gaze back to the younger woman, lips pressed tightly together, a thousand different questions running through her head. “Okay. Okay—that’s, this is kind of good though, right? I mean, maybe...maybe Diana did come back here-”

Jess’s gaze slides over. “If she did, then where the fuck did she go? It doesn’t make any sense, I mean—those Peggies came in lookin’ for her, fuckin’ came right up and _asked_ me and Hurk where she was just before-”

Grace shakes her head, eyes inevitably shifting back to the woman on the floor as she reaches up to swipe a hand nervously across her mouth. The scene before them dredges up bad memories from her time overseas, making her stomach start to churn the longer they stay in here. “Before _what?”_

_“Cougars, you there?”_

They both jump, whipping toward the desk at the jarring interruption. 

_“This is Dutch. Callin’ for the Cougars. Whitehorse? Minkler? Will somebody answer the goddamn radio!?”_

Jess takes a wide, careful step over Faith’s body before leaning over the edge of the desk and swiping up the mic from the ham radio. “Dutch!”

_“Jess!? Thank Christ, what the hell is goin’ on over there? I just got word from Jerome and Mary May - they took back Fall’s End - but nobody’s been able to get through to you all since. Is everything okay out there? Is the deputy with you?”_

“No, Dutch, we ain’t seen the deputy since before dinner. And everything here is _very decidedly not o-fuckin-kay.”_

. . .

She wakes in the dark to a steady pounding on her bedroom door; heavy, but without urgency. A promise; a threat.

She’s in her bedroom in Laurel and she’s thirteen years old. She just got her first period earlier that day and she has no idea that Mark is drunk and fucking _furious_ that she left a bloody tampon in the trash for anyone to see. 

But his pounding immediately lets her know he’s in a mood to harass her, and that’s enough. Every single muscle in her body tenses. She has to force herself to tear her eyes away from the door, glancing briefly at the window on the wall to her right. It’s the one she always uses to sneak out, the one that opens out onto the roof of the extended porch down below.

She doesn’t have time to consider her escape. The door opens and there he stands, silhouetted against the dim light from the hallway. 

“You disgusting little... _fffucking brat,”_ her step-father spits as he lurches across the threshold. 

Diana exhales the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding onto, an involuntary moan escaping with it. She tucks her legs up, scrambling back against the headboard because her mind has gone completely blank and she can not figure out what to do and so she does _nothing._

_“Get up,”_ Mark demands as he reaches over to flick on the light. 

She blinks hard and fast, trying to adjust her eyes. “But-”

He shows her a sneer as he starts forward toward her bed with that potent air of drunken violence she’s become painfully accustomed to. “You’re gonna look at what you’ve done. _I said get up!”_

Diana starts pulling and tugging at her blanket, gathering it up into her lap as if it could ever provide some kind of cushion to the blows she knows are coming. Her hands work to the rhythm of her own fractured breathing; thin, lurching inhales that attest to the panic creeping up and constricting her chest. 

He reaches her in a handful of steps, bending to snatch at her arm and pull her bodily from the bed. 

She can smell the stink of vodka coming off him, and it’s like the cloying odor finally wakes her up all the way. She finally pulls back, lets out a rough little scream. _“No!”_

_“What the fuck did you just say to me?”_

His grip tightens like a vice. 

And then, from seemingly out of nowhere, a shovel swings into the side of his head like a bat.

There’s a dull, ringing thud when it collides, and then his hand loosens and slides from her arm as he collapses beside the bed.

Diana wheezes, scrambling aimlessly from the adrenaline flooding through her. She only manages to get herself tangled up in the blankets until her eyes finally focus on his attacker, on the intruder to her memory. 

Liliana grimaces and lets the shovel drop to the floor before her pretty, dark eyes flick up to land on Diana. “Hey, grumpy…” 

Diana stares at her in utter shock for a few beats. Her own breath sounds too loud as it moves in and out, her heart feels like it’s going to pound straight out of her chest, and she doesn’t understand how someone she _hasn’t even met yet_ is here, in her bedroom, rescuing her.

Liliana takes a step forward, reaches out her hand. “C’mon. We gotta go.” 

Diana doesn’t hesitate this time. She reaches out for Lili’s hand, knowing the older girl would never harm her. Liliana came for her. She loves her.

She can’t help sparing Mark a single glance as Liliana helps her clamber off the bed, never letting go of her hand once she’d grasped it. 

“I think you just killed my evil step-father,” Diana says in that dopey, too-obvious kind of speech reserved for bad comedies and dreams.

Saying that makes her stop involuntarily. Her head is awash with vague images and memories that compete for purchase, like she’s been through all of this before but the events are too jumbled to make any kind of sense of it.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Liliana tugs at her hand, nods her head toward the door. “C’mon.” 

Diana follows the lover she has yet to meet out into the hallway and down the stairs to the front door. She has a little bit of time to soak Liliana up, quietly and almost reverently as she trails behind, led by one outstretched hand. 

“How did you…?” 

Lili glances back as she opens the door to lead them outside. “What? How’d I find you?” She scoffs softly, shrugs one shoulder with that air of teenage confidence Diana is still struggling to find within herself. “I’ll always find you. C’mon. We gotta beat it.” 

The second they descend the porch steps out onto the sidewalk Diana feels overwhelming heat at her back. Liliana is still pulling her, urging her across the quiet suburban street, but clothed in only shorts and a baggy t-shirt as she is, the searing burst of hot air that assaults her is almost unbearable. She has to look back.

Their house has become an _inferno_ almost instantaneously.

She gapes at the sight, getting stuck in her tracks and forcing Liliana to a stop again, those not-quite memories knocking around the brittle cage of her mind like marbles. 

“Holy shit,” she mutters, because that’s all she can manage.

_“C’mon,_ grumpy. We don’t have much time.” 

Something about that statement makes Diana’s heart lurch almost sickeningly inside her chest. _No,_ she thinks almost automatically, seemingly without reason, _we don’t._

When she turns to look back at Liliana, they’re the same height. She knits her brows, looks down at herself. She’s somehow _filled out_ in the last few seconds. Longer legs, and the gym shorts she’s wearing suddenly feel tighter around her hips. _“The fuck-?”_

“Hey, stay with me, okay? He can’t wait forever,” Liliana tugs on her hand once more and sets them off again while the house burns behind them. 

“What? No, _wait-”_

They start to pass an ambulance, parked off-kilter with two tires up on the sidewalk, two stretchers standing just outside the back doors. Both are adorned with a body bag, and Diana’s gaze gets stuck on them. She roots herself to the spot as red and white lights flash from the top of the vehicle, bathing them and the street in an eerie rhythmic pulse.

“Liliana, _stop!_ Those-” 

Diana starts to yank herself from the other girl’s grasp, dread creeping up her spine as a powerful sense of déjà vu hits her. Yes, she’s been here before, she knows all about the fire and why that ambulance is there and who’s in the-

She gets pulled, hard, spinning and practically crashing into Liliana, who grabs a fistful of the hair at the back of her head and presses her mouth to Diana’s, holding her firm for a bruising kiss. 

That’s not like Lili at all. 

Diana blinks, taken off guard, fighting the urge to fall into it but it’s so _hard_ when she still smells like that awful, chalky soap they’d had back at Cascade County, still tastes like the bubblegum she always bought from the detention center’s commissary. It’s enough to smother out the alarms going off in Diana’s head.

Until Liliana’s teeth catch her lip and warmth blooms across her tongue, the taste of coppery iron snuffing out that pleasant bubblegum sweetness. 

Diana gasps at the sudden flare of pain, eyes flying open, hands flying up to shove against the other girl’s shoulders. But she is met with much firmer resistance than a teenage girl’s slender collarbones. 

It’s a man who’s tangled up with her now, his beard rasping against her chin before he pulls back with a self-satisfied grin, showing her the blood staining his teeth. _Her_ blood. Bright blue eyes accost her in the flaring ambulance light instead of Liliana’s dark ones, teeming with violent glee. 

“As I said—we don’t have much time, my dear. Though...I _could_ have you right here,” he purrs, insinuating himself back into her space, smoothing a palm down along the curve of her hip and squeezing her ass through the too-tight gym shorts. “At least for a little while…” 

A flare of indignance rises within her at Liliana’s sudden disappearance; at her transmogrification into this _man_ with his slick, silky voice and tattooed hands pawing at her. Bewilderment swells like the tide, dragging rage and fear and an unsought, cloying desire along with it. 

She bares her own bloody teeth at him even as he grabs her by the arm once more and forces her away from the street and the ambulance and the bodies, towards the trees at the other end of the cul-de-sac. 

“You are not a lamb. You do not get the privilege of becoming a martyr for your _sins,”_ he practically hisses, dragging her into the tall darkness of the forest even as she tries to fight back, drag her heels, scream and wail at her abduction. But every movement feels like molasses, slow and sticky and worth far more energy than she can provide. 

“This is for your own good. You’ll see that eventually. You’ll see everything when you _just...stop...fighting.”_

She does stop fighting when his harshly bitten words coincide with the scene she starts to make out in the eerie, silent forest when her eyes finally adjust to the darkness. There are bodies up on the trees. People she knows, strung up like deer waiting to be gutted.

That’s where Liliana went, and the sight of her up there summons a coiling inside Diana’s guts like a lively, gruesome parasite. As she stumbles along in mute horror behind him, she counts the others, every one she sees. Every one done up with some kind of horrible pageantry; antlers, chicken wire, bundles of white flowers spilling petals in the breeze. Jess...Grace...the sheriff...her mother, her father...Pastor Jerome, Holly Pepper...Staci, Joey...all of them, everyone from past and present, everyone she’s failed or let down or still has yet to. Whatever monster he’s leading her to took them all, put them on gruesome display.

There’s a light, getting brighter, filtering through the trees ahead of them. It takes a few minutes for the source to make itself known, but then she sees it when they emerge into a clearing; it’s like a window to nowhere, a shape that’s almost reminiscent of an iron cross, but entirely its own design, hovering solitary in the air and filtering golden light down onto a lone figure. 

She winces, withstanding another powerful wave of déjà vu as her eyes lock onto the man who waits in the light. He sits on his knees, shirtless, all scars and tattoos, though not nearly as much ink on him as the man leading her has. 

He looks _soft_ sitting in that light, but the sensation seeing him invokes makes her teeth want to start chattering and her body start shivering, makes her feel as if eels are sliding all around and up the walls of her stomach. She makes another attempt to pull herself free, digs her bare heels into the needle carpet of the forest floor, tries to wrench herself from her captor’s grasp.

He just barks out a harsh laugh before pulling her back in as if she weighs nothing, sucking his bloody teeth and tut-tutting at her so condescendingly it makes her want to shriek. 

Diana doesn’t know these men but she _does,_ has never met them but she _has._ The knowledge is there but the memories of _how_ and _why_ and _when_ refuse to make themselves known, dangling treacherously just out of her grasp. 

“John—stop playin’ your little games,” a gruff voice calls from somewhere close by; there’s a third man off in the darkness beside one of the trees, outside of where the light reaches. “There ain’t much time.”

_John._

The third grunts as he pulls down on a rope that’s slung up over one of the branches. He’s putting in a considerable effort, which makes sense when figured with the fact that it’s yet another body attached to the other end that he’s hoisting up. A woman in a pretty lace dress, dirty blonde hair obscuring part of her face. 

Diana shakes her head, pressing the knuckles of her hand to her chewed-up lip, partly to smother some of the pain and ground herself.

She turns her attention back to John. She knows his name now, and that must give her some kind of power in this Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole _fucking_ nightmare. 

_“John,”_ she hisses when he starts pulling her in the direction of the man bathed in light. “Don’t. _Don’t-!”_

_“I don’t have much of a choice, dear heart,”_ he hisses right back, nearly under his breath as if he doesn’t want anyone else to hear. 

John shoves her forward, marches her to the other man like an offering and pushes her down to her knees before him. 

Diana can’t help the way she quakes under his scrutiny, even as he smiles so softly and lifts his hands to brush her own bloody one away so that he can cup her face. 

“And behold, I saw a white horse. And Hell followed with him,” he mutters, leaning forward to press his forehead to hers.

“You are _so lost,”_ he continues after a few moments in his slow, quietly emphatic way, one hand sliding around to cradle the back of her neck. “You are lost and you refuse to see the path God has set for you. You refuse to even reflect on the path you’ve already walked. You’ve blinded yourself. But you _have to look.”_

His hands fall to her shoulders and urge her to turn around, to look back in the direction John had brought her in from. 

“You have to look at what you’ve done.” 

She can’t stop shivering. When he turns her, her gaze immediately flicks above the treeline to where she can still see just the barest hints of flame licking the sky from the fire, sending oily black smoke billowing up into the night. 

And then a brilliant flash casts the world in daylight for a brief moment, nearly blinding her in its ferocity as the earth shakes beneath them and the flames rise, billowing and inflating with some unholy force to bloom into a perfect mushroom cloud that towers above the trees. 

The prophet holds her shoulders tightly, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nowhere she can go. Everyone she’d tried to help is dead. And there is no escape from this. 

“The world is on fire—and it is your fault,” he mutters close behind her ear. “You can run and run _and run_ —but you can’t change the way it began, nor can you change the way it will end. I will always find you.”

. . .

A sound jolts John awake.

He’d never meant to fall asleep, doesn’t even know when it had happened, but his exhaustion pales in comparison to the lance of alarm that shoots down his spine at what sounds like the deputy crying out in pain. 

She’s thrashing, in some kind of episode or fever dream. It’s a good thing the nurses had restrained her hands, because if they _hadn’t_ she’d have probably thrown herself over one side of the bed by now.

He’s up and out of the chair in a moment, glancing around the room instinctively before circling the bed almost like a predator. He watches Diana for a few beats while she gasps for breath like someone in the midst of a panic attack, pulling her wrists against the restraints bound to the bars on either side of her. 

She’s going to jostle the IV right out of her own arm if she doesn’t stop. He bends down, puts his hands on her forearms just above the bands of the restraints, trying to pin her, stop her from struggling so much. 

She gasps, a watery half-sob, and it’s only then he notices the tears trailing down her face. 

_“Stop,”_ she manages before another desperate, choking intake of breath. “Stop—I can’t— _I don’t-”_

It’s almost enough to make John pull back, taking her broken words at face value as being directed at him. But her eyes are still squeezed shut, and she was struggling long before he’d even gotten near her. He wonders briefly if it’s him attacking her in her dreams.

_“Diana!”_ he barks, a little harsher than intended, voice still hoarse with sleep.

“Lili— _please-”_

“Diana,” he repeats, gentler this time, lowering his focus to the restraint closest to him. He lets go of one arm, the one without the IV needle in it, fumbling at the bindings to detach her from the bar at the side of the bed so that he can collapse it.

She thrashes once more, perhaps subconsciously registering the way he moves around her before he finally slams the bar down and takes a hasty seat on the edge of the bed, grabbing up her free arm once more to hold her still. It’s a very awkward position, one that leaves him half-bent over her, so that when her eyes finally open it’s him taking up almost her entire field of vision.

She pants, chest hitching, eyes roving back and forth wildly; they’re no longer covered over with that sickly green cataract-like cloudiness, but her pupils are still blown wide, blackness of a void he can’t fathom overtaking the color of the irises. 

There is silence for a few moments as her breathing finally starts to even out and they regard each other. 

_“M’gonna puke-”_ Diana slurs out suddenly, rolling over and leaning over the edge of the bed away from him with her newfound modicum of freedom, her hand pulling from his grasp to clutch at the bar desperately. She lets her head hang off the edge and groans, long and low and hoarse, before sucking in a deep breath. 

“Diana,” John tries once more. He hears the distinctive sound of her spitting onto the floor and tenses, waiting for the dry heaving to start. 

Somehow, it doesn’t. She only continues taking big, long, loud breaths, looking like she’s in absolutely no hurry to pick her head up from where it still hangs, dark hair falling limp to cover any of her face he might’ve still been able to see. 

John doesn’t know what to do or what to say, really. It’s odd; he usually has no trouble putting on a reassuring smile for their followers, coaxing out a few warm and empathetic words, putting a hand on a shoulder and squeezing in a gesture of brotherly love. 

It’s always been a mask. 

But with her, it’s different. What does it say about him that he lacks the ability to express such simple tenderness, such a trite human expression, when it’s real? When it’s most important? When it actually _means_ something?

“...I—I wanna...wanna confess...”

_That_ grabs his attention, pulls him from his tempestuous thoughts, makes him whip his head toward her like there’s a fish hook lodged in his lip and _tugging._

She takes a few more deep breaths, shoulders rising and falling with the motion, and he wonders if she’s still crying with the way she shudders through it. 

“I’m not...not a hero,” she slurs, the words blurring together at their edges. “I’m not what they think I am…I’m not _good…”_

_“Stop,”_ John hisses before he even realizes what he’s doing, a sudden panic flaring to life behind his ribs. “Stop talking.” 

_“I can’t,”_ she marches on painfully, “I can’t, I’m-”

_“Shut up,”_ John bites out tersely, grabbing her by her shoulder and forcefully rolling her onto her back so that she has no choice but to face him. He cages her in, pins both of her arms once more, hovering down over her threateningly because that’s all he knows. “I won’t hear it like this, deputy. Do you understand?” 

Diana blinks, face soured up and pursed from the way he’d just handled her, like she’s utterly confused by his reaction.

“I thought—you _wanted-”_

John huffs out a sigh. “Believe me, _I do._ You have no idea how badly I want to open you and watch your sin _spill out,”_ he mutters fervently, eyes locked with hers. A voice inside him screams that this may be his only opportunity, his one chance. 

“However, I need...I need you to be _lucid_ when you make that choice. I did not end Rachel’s life just for her to lord one last posthumous victory over me,” he grits out, unable to keep the venom from his voice. 

This is all he’d wanted. And now he’s willfully _stopping_ her from giving it up. Whatever she saw deep in the throes of her Bliss dreams, however voluntary she thinks this is, whatever she’s trying to tell him now won’t be a confession he’s _earned._ It will only be a result of Faith’s ministrations, and cannot allow such a pivotal moment to be tainted like that. He _will_ not. 

Diana blinks again - sluggish, confused - like she’s struggling to absorb his lofty speech. Before he knows it her face is scrunching up once more, fresh tears spilling from the corners of her glassy eyes. 

_“Bastard,”_ she spits, turning her face away from him, trying to yank her arm out from his grasp and roll onto her side again. “Fucking... _asshole piece-of-shit.”_

He sighs in exasperation, not fighting her, even backing off slightly so as to let her roll back onto her side and tuck her legs up toward her chest like a child. “If you were even capable of it, I have a feeling you’d be more inclined to _thank_ me once you’ve sobered up.” 

“You said...said I could be _free,”_ she slurs, half-muffled by the pillow she’s smushed her face into. “Said you’d wash it away... _you said that_. _Liar_. You’re just—jus’ gonna hand me over. Jus’ gonna fucking hand me over to him…”

It’s almost reassuring, hearing her address him with such vitriol again. He moves, slides down onto the bed beside her and wraps his arm around her waist, tugging her back against him. An unusually gentle, soft kind of thing, almost like a reward for the confession she’d finally wanted to give. “I did say that, and I _wasn’t_ lying, and there are _plenty_ of my brothers and sisters who would attest to that. No need to throw away your trust before you’ve even given it, my dear. But right now I need you to close that mouth and go back to sleep. Understand?”

“Eat a dick,” she mutters thickly, but it already sounds as if she’s starting to nod off again. 

“Charming,” he replies, cool and clipped right behind her ear. His arm tightens around her all the same.


	32. Get Free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna get free  
>  I'm gonna get free  
>  Ride into the sun
> 
> \- The Vines, Get Free

Miles from where John has spirited the deputy away to the bowels of his bunker, Sharky makes a right-hand turn off the main road onto a bumpy, nondescript dirt driveway. A _For Sale_ sign marks the entrance, with another smaller sign tacked underneath that reads _Desperate_ in bold letters. 

Nora’d remembered shortly after they left the jail what she’d done with the address of her friend Megan’s safehouse; had it written on a scrap of paper tucked away securely inside her bra. The number on the mailbox matches what she’s got written down.

She’s currently in the back seat with Shaun, who’s fallen into a restless sleep with his head on her lap. She absently strokes her fingers through his soft, dark hair, tilts her head so that she can see out through the windshield. 

As they come up on the house, she sees a utility trailer packed full of furniture come into view in the car’s headlights, left abandoned just out front. Overturned boxes litter the driveway, Eden’s Gate banners and jimson weed bouquets pinned up all over the house itself to show it had been claimed by the Project and purged.

She wants to say something, wants to say _lots_ of things, but for some reason she can’t find the words. She’s still trying to wrap her head around how it’s all come to this. She’d put herself in danger trying to help the deputy and her friends; put _her boy_ in danger because of it, and she can’t forgive herself for that. 

She thinks about Holly and feels a tear trail slowly down her cheek. They were supposed to get out together. She’d heard rumors of defectors being taken in and granted protection by Jerome Jeffries, thought perhaps him or some other Resistance leader could help them and their friend. When they’d come upon the deputy that day beside the Henbane she thought their opportunity had finally presented itself, never anticipating Diana would ask them to infiltrate a herald’s bunker to prove their trustworthiness. 

“You got your gun?” 

Nora blinks, watery eyes flicking up to land on the back of Sharky’s head. _Sharky._ He’s been so stupidly good to her, better than anyone else. And even more importantly, he’s been good to _Shaun,_ and that makes her heart stutter in her chest, makes it hard to stay resolute about the decision she’d made more than a month ago. 

“You know,” he continues when she doesn’t immediately respond, eyes flicking up to search for her in the rearview. “Just in case…” 

“Y-yeah—yes, I’ve still got it,” she responds, low and hoarse. 

Sharky nods, flipping off the headlights as he creeps the car in beside the abandoned trailer. He seems like he has things he wants to say, too, and she realizes it almost hurts that he’s been so abnormally quiet for the whole drive.

He lets out a big sigh, puffing his cheeks out, and she _knows_ he wants to say something. 

She glances down to make sure Shaun is still asleep. “Sharky…”

“What’s up, shorty?” 

Nora wrestles with all kinds of things before finally settling on the easiest. “Will you stay here with him? Just for a minute.”

She sees his brow furrow beneath the brim of his hat in the mirror before he shifts hastily in the front seat, turning to look back at her. “Nah uh, _no way-!”_

_“Shhh_ —please! Look, she, she came up with this stupid password we’d use, and...and if she’s not here, then…”

“Yeah, what if it’s a bunch of fuckin’ Peggies in there instead?” Sharky quips back, obviously irritated.

She levels him with a pointed stare, forcing herself to keep her voice muted. “Then it’s better they see _me_ than _you,_ right? I was technically one of them up until pretty recently, so... _please,_ just stay here with him, just for a minute while I go make sure we’re clear?”

Sharky’s mouth works like he’s on the verge of telling her every single reason why it’s a bad idea, but she’s got him cornered. He finally huffs out an agitated sigh and nods. “Alright, alright. But you get your ass back here if shit feels weird, Nor, okay? I’ll leave the engine runnin’.” 

She agrees to that before gently waking the boy up, whispering a few words to him before opening the back door and sliding out. 

Nora feels for the gun, still tucked into the waistband of her jeans, and removes it as she makes her way around the car and toward the front door. 

The place is dark and silent. The windows she can see are all boarded up. She takes a wide step over a box that’s spilled various knickknacks out into the dirt; a few picture frames and some DVDs. She can’t help wondering what became of the people who’d obviously been trying to flee their home before the cult swooped in. Dead? Forcibly assimilated? Sent east and made into Angels? 

She takes a deep breath, thumbing off the safety on her pistol as she steps up onto the porch. She gives the area one more sweep with her eyes before reaching out and knocking gently on the door.

. . .

Sharky’s heart feels like it actually stops for a second when he sees the front door creep open. A second is still too long for all the gruesome possibilities his imagination manages to come up with, but when everything remains quiet in the few moments that follow his frazzled nerves finally start to relax. 

He sees Nora turn around and give a small wave and a thumbs up before stashing the pistol back in her waistband, taking that as his cue to finally kill the car’s idling engine. He sits there for another moment, feeling weird; feeling the finality of it all, maybe. “Alright, kid,” he starts, pausing to clear his throat. “Looks like your mom says we’re good to go, so...let’s get to it.”

“Are we leaving?” Shaun asks, alert now and sounding appropriately excited given the circumstances of the evening.

“I...think you ‘n your mom are, yeah,” he replies, ducking his head before unclipping his seatbelt and opening the door. 

He feels cowardly all of a sudden. Like he hadn’t really _believed_ Nora had been set to meet with this chick for weeks now, like she hadn’t been hedging her bets on it. And he knows it’s stupid and selfish to think that, even by his standards. It’s not like he’s had the best luck with women in his life, but he’s quickly realizing it’s like a kick in the balls thinking about letting this one go.

He opens the back door for the kid, puts a hand against his shoulder as they amble over to the house. 

“Megan, Ethan—this is Sharky,” Nora introduces him as she takes a step to the side, glancing over to show him and Shaun a small, reassuring smile. It’s strained and it doesn’t really seem to reach her eyes. “I’m sorry we got here a little earlier than we planned, but...if it wasn’t for him I don’t think we would’ve made it at all.”

He sees the woman, Megan, hovering half-concealed in the doorway. And beside her, pressed right in close and clinging to one of her legs is a little boy. He’s younger than Shaun, can’t be more than five or six; looks up at him with intense, dark eyes that threaten to send a shiver right down Sharky’s spine. 

He has no idea _why;_ he tries to bury that feeling as he buries his hands into the pockets of his jeans, clearing his throat and giving them a salutatory nod of his head. 

Megan’s eyes flicker between them, tired and wary. But there’s relief in there, and that helps steady Sharky out a bit. 

“Why don’t you guys come in? No reason to be sitting ducks out here.” Megan puts a hand on Ethan’s back and guides him away from the door, making space for her guests to come through. 

“I’ve been out a lot - at night, mostly - making trips up to Old Sun to get supplies,” she says, sparing a glance back at Nora. “A lot of their hiking and camping stuff is gone by now. I grabbed what I could, but I don’t know if I’ve got enough gear for the six of us...” 

Sharky just sees Nora’s brow twitch as he makes his way inside behind Shaun. The house is dark, most likely because Megan keeps it that way to prevent Eden’s Gate from discovering them. It seems like a bitch of a way to be living, but not without good reason.

“Is Holly coming to meet us later?” Megan asks after a brief pause, glancing back and forth between the two of them. 

“Um, no,” Nora starts, crossing her arms and shifting her gaze. She chews her lip for a second and then puts a hand out to rest on Shaun’s head, smoothing down his hair and beckoning him forward gently. “Hey honey, why don’t you and Ethan go catch up, huh? We’ve got some stuff we need to talk about, okay?” 

“Okay,” he replies a little absently, pausing to look up at Sharky one last time before he casts his gaze to the floor and wanders over toward where Ethan still doggedly clutches at his mother. 

Megan leans down, puts on a smile for her son. “Why don’t you go show him the tents we got? Show him how good you are at getting them all set up.” 

Ethan’s thick lashes flutter and the boy rolls his eyes a little sullenly even as he finally pries himself from her. “It’s not that hard…” 

“That’s why you’re the perfect person to show him how it’s done—‘cause you’re so smart like that, sweetie.” 

Ethan’s mouth curls a little, but he finally acquiesces and takes off out of the entryway, leaving Shaun to follow along behind him. 

“Holly’s dead,” Nora states flatly after the boys are out of earshot. 

Megan wets her lips, her brow knitting. She runs a hand up through the auburn curls of her hair a little anxiously, looks back at Nora as she asks, “what happened...?” 

_“John_ happened.” 

Megan puffs out a breath of air, blinking back the tears that threaten in her eyes, almost like she’d expected the answer. “You know, it’s funny...I thought I was special, back when—with Joseph...and then, after a while, I was sure I was a complete _idiot_ for what I did,” she says, voice thick with emotion, glancing back down the hallway surreptitiously. “But somehow I always knew it was gonna end bad for her. He wasn’t like the Father, he wasn’t... _reassuring,_ not really. He was just...always all smiles, with nothing underneath…”

Sharky blinks, confused. He doesn’t really get the depth of what it is she’s talking about, but it seems like Nora does because suddenly she’s turning and putting a hand on his shoulder. 

“We can give you a minute, Meg. It’s...I know you were closer to her than I was.” 

Nora leads him back to the front door while Megan nods and sniffles and wipes at her eyes behind them. 

“Was that somethin’ I was supposed to be hearing, ‘cause...I ain’t gonna lie, shorty, I got no clue what the fuck was just goin’ on in there,” he mutters when they’re back outside and Nora shuts the door behind them. 

She chews her lip and sighs. “Probably not. Just...don’t worry about it, okay?”

He frowns, checking her out for a moment. She looks so _tired;_ worn down by all this shit, and he can’t blame her. Something tightens in his chest. “So, is this like...goodbye?” 

Nora stills in the middle of folding her arms. She swallows thickly, looking away out at the driveway for a few moments. “Sharky, I want you to know, I—I wouldn’t be jumping ship like this if I didn’t have to keep him safe,” she starts, glancing back at the house. “But, fuck, him and Ethan, they’re both just _kids,_ and-”

Sharky shakes his head, puts out a hand to wave off her explanations. “Fuckin’ A yeah—yeah, they _are_ just kids, and this place sure as fuck ain’t safe anymore. You don’t gotta explain anything to me, okay?”

Nora looks up at him for a few moments, searching almost like she hadn’t expected him to wholeheartedly agree with her. 

But Sharky knows what it’s like to grow up without parents; his own had abandoned him, and thankfully his grandma had been there, but still. It’s obvious to anybody and everybody how much Nora loves Shaun like he was her own, and Sharky sees it clear as day, and she deserves to be able to get the both of them out of this bullshit with Eden’s Gate and start over somewhere and be _happy._

“Sharky, I…”

“She was talkin’ about getting gear ‘n shit—you plannin’ on _hiking_ outta the county?” 

Nora clears her throat and sniffs, reaching up to wipe at her eyes with the heel of one hand. “Yeah.”

Sharky’s mouth quirks. He shakes his head, moves in closer and hesitates. Then he seems to make up his mind, reaching up to smooth a calloused palm over her hair almost shyly, finally letting it rest warm against her cheek. “You should, uh...you should let me call my aunt Addie. She’s got that big ass chopper, she could fly you right on outta here-”

Nora makes a small sound, knitting her brows and ducking her head slightly even as she shakes it. _“No,_ no, I couldn’t ask her to do that for us. It’s too dangerous, too _loud_ —they’d shoot us out of the air as soon as they figured out we were headed for the county line…” 

“And besides,” she adds with a watery little laugh, leaning into him ever so slightly, “I’m, uh...kinda scared of flying…”

Sharky tries to show her a smile, gives her a husky little laugh, but it’s all strained. “Okay...okay, no helicopters…” 

She finally tilts her head to look up at him. He can see the sheen of wetness in her eyes now that the sun is finally coming up, just a hint of grayish light to brighten the world. 

_“You should come with us_ ––there's enough gear for five people-”

_“Shit...”_ Sharky winces; he’d been trying to stoke himself up in the event of _not_ getting invited along. Been expecting it to go that way, really. But this might actually be worse. He clenches his jaw, curls his fingers into her pretty hair. 

“I _can’t,_ shorty,” comes the reply in a hoarse near-whisper as he lets his forehead drop against hers a little ungracefully, making his ball cap cant up at an uneasy angle. “I’ve pissed on those assholes so many times now—I mean, figuratively, not literally - well, maybe literally once or twice, but - but all I’d do is put a big-ass fuckin’ target on your back...” 

She huffs out a mirthless laugh, shakes her head. “That’s not…”

“And, I—I can’t leave everybody else. I can’t leave Hurky and Jess and Grace to clean up this fuckin’ mess all by themselves…wouldn’t be a very good bro if I did.”

“Not the _deputy?”_ Nora asks, unable to contain some bitterness from spilling into it.

“Well, yeah, dep too, I guess, but...she kinda just makes herself canon fodder more than anything, don’t she?” 

Nora scoffs. “Herself _and_ everybody else…” She finally unfolds her arms, reaches up to curl her fists into the fabric of his sweatshirt and sighs heavily. “I _knew_ you’d say no. But…”

“I appreciate the fuck outta you askin’, Nor,” he mutters hastily, locking his eyes on hers. “I _do._ And I know I am the biggest dumbass on the fuckin’ planet for shootin’ you down right now-”

He doesn’t get to finish because Nora is up on her toes, pressing her lips into his, making him forget whatever other pathetic thing was about to tumble from his mouth. 

He blinks, startled and sluggish with the weight of all his conflicted feelings, but soon enough his other hand rises to cradle her face and he’s starting to remember what you’re supposed to do when somebody’s kissing you.

She parts from him with another small sigh, just enough so that she can shake her head and mutter, “you _are_ a dumbass—but it’s because you don’t even realize how lucky they are to have you around.”

He feels the corner of his mouth threaten to twist at that and can’t think of anything to say that isn’t self-deprecating, so he just kisses her again, feeling like he’s gonna fucking melt at the way she so easily lets him. 

_“Hercules to Sharksidious. Come in Sharksidious. Where you at, cuz?”_

Sharky and Nora startle away from each other at the intrusion and he can’t help muttering a few choice words at his cousin’s inauspicious timing. He gives her a lingering, apologetic look before fumbling for the radio at his hip. 

“I hear ya, Hurky. Sorry we ghosted, man—I had to get Nora and the kid someplace safe.” 

_“Ohhh, cool, cool-”_

“Is it, uh—“ he raises his other hand to pinch the bridge of his nose “—is it a total fuckin’ disaster back there…?” 

Nora furrows her brows, chews her lip as she watches him, seemingly also curious as to what Hurk’s answer will be. 

_“Could be worse. We lost some, but, uh...somebody out here still managed to choke Faith’s chicken. Kind of a bummer, ya know, ‘cause she was so smokin’ hot ‘n all, but-”_

“Wait— _what?”_ Sharky’s eyes go wide. He raises his free hand, readjusts his hat nervously. His eyes meet Nora’s and she looks just as incredulous as he feels. 

_“Yeah man, somebody fuckin’ capped her. ‘Course, nobody knows who. Double-D’s the obvious suspect, but we ain’t seen hide nor hair of her, either, so…nobody’s really sure what the fuck’s goin’ on. Anyways—tee-el-dee-are, we could definitely use you back here, cuz.”_

“Yeah...yeah, I’ll get back real soon, Hurk,” Sharky replies reticently, lifting his finger from the talk button. 

Nora clears her throat, folding her arms as silence descends over them once more. “You, um...wanna say goodbye to Shaun?” she asks a little shakily, toeing a shoe into the porch. “No pressure––he’ll just be furious if you don’t, so…”

“Yeah. ‘Course I will,” Sharky replies as he clips the radio back to his belt and moves to follow her inside, putting a warm hand at the small of her back, wanting like hell to let it linger.

. . .

By the time he gets back to the jail an hour or so later, the sky has lightened into full morning. 

He’d watched the sun rise on his drive back, at least what he could see of it through the trees once it had made its way above the jagged line of the mountains. The sky was all golds and lavenders for a brief and elusive time and he’d wondered if Nora was still awake to see it or if she’d crashed the fuck out once he’d left them. Even though it was pretty, he rather hoped she was able to get some sleep before they attempt to leave the county.

Things seem quiet but Jess, Hurk, Grace and Tracey are all still awake, sat up on the wall like they were just waiting to greet him as he drove in. More likely, they’re all up there keeping watch and suffering some kind of traumatic insomnia, but either way he’s glad to see them all safe.

“Heya, cuz!” Hurk calls down, waving Sharky up to join them.

“So what are we gonna do with her?” Tracey’s asking as he finally pulls himself to the top of the ladder and climbs up onto the wall. 

He nods when Hurk comes over and offers him a cup of coffee, watches his cousin move off toward one of the guard posts to grab the pot they’ve got on before turning his attention back to the others.

“I say we give ‘em a taste of their own medicine and string the bitch up,” Jess replies venomously from where she reclines on a foldout chair, arms crossed tight over her chest. “Send ‘em a fuckin’ message they can’t ignore.”

_“Jesus Christ,”_ Tracey chokes out, grimacing in horror. 

Grace reaches over and knuckles Jess on the arm, giving her a _very_ pointed look. “The _fuck,_ Jess?”

The hunter sucks her teeth and rolls her eyes. “Fuck. Look, I’m sorry, but that _ain’t_ the girl you used to know, Trace. She got so up her own ass in all of Joseph’s bullshit—you _know_ what she’s done-”

_“Nobody fuckin’ deserves that,”_ Tracey spits, curt and sharp as she stands up. “We all know you got a hard-on for that fuckin’ deputy––but just ‘cause she fucked off and disappeared, that doesn’t mean anything!” 

Jess angles her head, watching the other woman storm off with an indignant sneer. _“You keep tellin’ yourself that if it helps you sleep at night!”_

Sharky gives Tracey a sheepish look and moves aside as she storms past him to get to the ladder, reaching up to rub the back of his neck nervously. 

_“Jess,”_ Grace hisses reproachfully.

“Well, am I fuckin’ _wrong!?”_ Jess rounds on Grace, throwing her hands up indignantly. “How you told it, Di disappeared the _exact_ same fuckin’ way she did when she went to pick up Sharky. Fuckin’ _poof._ Just the way Faith likes to do it. If that raging bitch _didn’t_ drown her in Bliss and take her somewhere last night, then what the fuck else happened?”

Hurk comes back to stand beside Sharky once more, giving him a nervous side-eye as he offers out that cup of coffee. 

The pyro returns a small nod of thanks, wishing like hell it was a beer instead. It feels like everyone is still in shock, circling around each other with their hackles up while they scramble to figure out what the fuck actually happened last night.

“And now she’s fuckin’ _dead_ so we can’t even torture her for the info! We’re right back where we started,” Jess complains miserably, glaring down at her fists. 

Sharky leans over slightly, giving Hurk’s arm a tap with his elbow. “Hey, man...you know where Pratt is?” he asks his cousin surreptitiously. 

Hurk blinks. “Pratt? Uh...huh. Nope. Ain’t seen him for a minute, now that I think about it. Why you lookin’?” 

Sharky shrugs one shoulder, takes a sip of the coffee. It’s bitter and black, but at least it’s hot. “Nora and her friend there are plannin’ on backpackin’ outta the county. He’s always been outdoorsy and shit. Kinda had some questions I wanted to ask him. Nothin’ serious or anything,” he mutters, staring doggedly down at his cup, “just wanna make sure they got a chance in hell of makin’ it outta here…”

“Did Faith have anything on her?” Grace asks, cutting into Sharky and Hurk’s muted conversation. “Was there anything we could have missed?”

Jess throws her hands up, shakes her head in frustration. “Just those fuckin’ drug needles strapped to her leg...”

“Well, uh, this ain’t got nothin’ to do with Faith, but what about when we heard John come on over the radio-?”

Grace and Jess both whip their heads in Hurk’s direction. 

_“John?”_ the sniper asks, looking back and forth between them. 

“Fuck, I forgot about that,” Jess mutters ruefully. “Yeah, we heard him just before the last of the Peggies cleared out. Almost sounded like _he_ was the one givin’ ‘em orders or somethin’...”

“Out here. In the Henbane,” Grace deadpans. “That doesn’t make sense, that ain’t the way they usually operate.”

“No shit—that’s why it’s weird, ain’t it?” Hurk adds unhelpfully.

“Maybe they found out Faith was dead, sent little bro and his posse out here to finish the job she couldn’t?” Sharky muses.

“But he _didn’t._ He didn’t finish shit—you’re all still here, and so is Faith,” Grace rebuts thoughtfully. “If Joseph sent him out here to clean up the mess, at the _very least_ you’d think they’d have took her body.”

“What if they sent him out here to take _Diana,”_ Jess posits, fallen unusually quiet after that little spat with Tracey. 

The others glance around, an uneasiness settling over the group. 

“Well, how many times has that chucklefuck tried to kidnap her before now and failed?” Sharky asks, trying to lighten the mood somehow even though he’s feeling far from light-hearted. “Personally, I’m still convinced baby bro just wants to get his dick wet-”

_“Gross,”_ Jess cuts in, leveling him with a nasty glare. “No fuckin’ way she’d ever do that-”


	33. Honey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This love, will it ever be right?
> 
> She needs someone to hold on tonight
> 
> This girl, she got the devil inside
> 
> Her mind and I don't get me no,
> 
> No touch
> 
> No love in the night
> 
> -Bonjah, Honey

Diana’s eyes rake sluggishly over the familiar shape of John’s ranch as he opens the door of the truck to let her out. He even amicably allows her to put most of her weight on his arm as she steps down to the packed gravel driveway unsteadily.

She’s been awake for some of the day but, needless to say, the comedown from her near-fatal overdose hasn’t exactly been smooth and easy. She’d spent most of her conscious hours back in the bunker’s infirmary violently dry heaving with nothing in her stomach to purge, and when she wasn’t doing that she’d been trying to will her body to stop sweating and shaking and otherwise entirely _betraying_ her. 

They’d stuffed a few Valium down her throat not long after that. She was loathe to admit it helped.

She’s still lightheaded, unsteady on her feet. She should hate the fact that she probably looks like a newborn foal stumbling around in the too-big cult attire they’d so graciously shoved at her; a khaki crew neck with their insignia blazoned red off-center on the front and a pair of hideous cargo pants. She’d rather be walking around in nothing.

She should hate that she’s back here with _him,_ armed guards giving her dirty looks while he leads her up the immaculately landscaped driveway like a sickly, waifish Victorian child. She should hate that she doesn’t even know what happened; only has vague, illusory memories of the last few days. _She should hate that she has no idea what’s happened to her friends,_ if John having her in his possession is any indicator as to the state of things.

But all she feels is that lingering dizziness and a troubling, chemically-induced sense of calm.

He glances back at her and slows his stride from a crawl to a near stand-still, raising an eyebrow. “Shall I carry you?” he asks, muscles in his jaw working almost imperceptibly as if a grin is only moments away from breaking out, “over the threshold, as it were…?” 

Diana stares blankly ahead for a moment. 

“Get fucked,” comes the lethargic and arguably non-venomous reply as she shuffles out of his orbit to keep doggedly making her way to the house on her own. 

John watches her curl her arms around herself like she’s cold though it’s a balmy 68 degrees or so, even well into the afternoon as it is. He huffs out a breath and follows, catching up in a few quick steps. “As tempting as that is, perhaps let’s wait until you’re off the Valium—hm?” 

She narrows her eyes, grimacing up at the house as she mounts the single step to the porch. “Why did you bring me here?”

“I thought it would be...safer.” John sweeps around her to go and open the front door, tilting his head and eyeing her in a way she thoroughly distrusts. “And more comfortable for you.”

Diana stops in the doorway and finally trains her gaze on him, letting her face remain blank; expectant.

“I know how hard it is for you to _play nice._ And frankly, you’ve given our faithful excruciatingly little reason to turn the other cheek. Here, you’ll be relatively undisturbed and you’ll have mostly free roam of the grounds...” 

She cocks an eyebrow at his blatant display of good-natured _hospitality,_ still refusing to make her way inside. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“But, if you try to run, my Chosen won’t hesitate to put you down - by non-lethal means, of course - however, it will result in some...unpleasant repercussions-”

“What is this?” 

“For-what? What’s _what?”_ he quips back, irritation spiking at being cut off mid-monologue. 

“This—all of _this,”_ she sneers and waves a hand around vaguely, in no mood to entertain John’s theatrics. At least the Valium hasn’t changed that. “Last time I was here I was handcuffed to your fucking bed-”

“So that you wouldn’t _kill me,_ or _yourself_ for that matter-”

“Oh, fuck you! I was across the river! What did you give her in exchange for me? D’you just hand over all my friends—wrap ‘em all up nice and pretty with a little fucking bow on top!?” 

John’s gaze flashes out toward the grounds, sweeping across the men walking the perimeter before he takes a step from around the open door and reaches out to _shove_ her inside. 

“I would not lower myself to _bargaining_ with her for your life, Diana,” he hisses back as he pulls the door shut behind them - obviously intent on this being a private discussion - rounding on her with that hard, cutting glint in his eyes. “She was perfectly content to sit back and watch you slip away. _I was not.”_

Diana rights herself from the shock of being pushed and whips back around to face him. It’s a fairly pathetic attempt; she has to put a hand out against his massive display case to help steady herself as a wave of lightheadedness hits her. _“What-”_

“I assume you don’t remember waking up last night, because we had some _very_ interesting-”

The sound of a radio crackling to life interrupts him once more.

_“My brothers…”_

John frowns, brow twitching. He angles his head toward the CB clipped to his belt, throwing up a hand to warn Diana to keep her mouth shut. 

_“...my children...”_

And then he waves at her pointedly, silently telling her to _stop putting her filthy fingerprints all over the glass._

_“A seal has been opened. Our sister was discovered mere hours ago, her life...cruelly taken from her. Our Faith._ My _Faith.”_

Diana freezes, instantly forgetting whatever aggressive remark she was about to make at John’s infuriating pretentiousness. She’s hit with a vague smattering of memories, ominous and enigmatic. 

Joseph sounds distraught, even over the unsteady airwaves. He’s speaking slow, choosing his words carefully but making no attempt to mask the way his voice cracks. 

_“And those sinners took her away from us. It is faith that holds us together...and without it we are lost. So we must never lose faith. And those that try to harm us...will_ suffer.” 

_She was perfectly content to sit back and watch you slip away. I was not._

“Hm,” John hums almost pleasantly after the radio falls silent, slowly shifting his gaze back up to her. “What have those friends of yours _done,_ deputy…?” 

_I was not._

Diana stiffens. She pushes herself away from the glass, glares at him from beneath her lashes as if she can parse out his demons through sheer will alone. “No— _you,”_ she replies, low and venomous, “what did _you_ do? Did you fucking _kill her-?!”_

John scoffs, a condescending smirk breaking out on his face. “Don’t pretend indignation - or worse, pathetically clutching at some tired old cop handbook ideals of justice - _I know you couldn’t care less,”_ he spits, taking a step toward her.

“You’re right, I don’t give a shit, but I _do_ care about the fact that you’re gonna let _my people_ take the fucking blame!” 

_“Can’t you see I’m clearing a path for us!?”_ he hisses, taking another step closer and reaching out for one of her hands as if he thinks he has a chance of smoothing everything over. As if what he’s done is supposed to be seen as some grand romantic gesture. 

Diana swats his hand away, taking a compensatory step backwards until she bumps into the display case. “More like too fucking cowardly to own up to what you did! What _ever_ will Joseph say-?” 

_“I did it to save your life, you ungrateful little-!”_

_“I never gave you any fucking reason to do that!”_ she bites back loudly, voice hoarse. Her first instinct is to lash out, to shove him away and force him out of her space, but she muzzles it and merely shoulders her way aggressively past him and into the living room proper. 

She has to put her hands out on the back of his couch to steady herself as nausea rolls over her, cloying and feverish. The last time she’d seen said piece of furniture, he’d flipped her right over where her hands are currently planted and proceeded to fuck her straight down into the cushions. She can’t help grimacing at the convoluted mix of emotions that stirs up.

“I never gave you any reason—I never f-fucking asked for _any_ of this,” Diana grits out, closing her eyes against the relentless, pounding headache that’s nearly reached a crescendo at the back of her skull. 

_“So you rather I’d left you there to die beside the likes of Virgil Minkler and that pompous fucking marshal!?”_

John seems to catch himself, exhales a long-suffering sigh and flexes his fists. “Trust me when I say you will give me every reason, Diana. You almost did last night. You were so wretched when you woke up,” he says, breathily, like he’s enjoying it now, “oh, you were _so close…”_

She grips the back of the couch tightly, bowing her head and tensing as his footsteps approach. 

“You would have given me _everything I wanted,”_ he mutters low, just behind her ear now. His fingers gently brush some of her dark hair away from her shoulder like he’s expunged his anger, tucked it dutifully away to save for the inevitable later. “...If I hadn’t stopped you.” 

_“Don’t touch me,”_ she spits, opening her eyes and glaring daggers at his stupid ornate fireplace and the looming, sinister portrait of Joseph that hangs above it. Refusing to turn around and look at him again, petulant as always. 

She doesn’t respond beyond that; her mind has gone blank grappling with the consequences of what he’s said. She immediately wants to assume he’s lying. She doesn’t remember waking up, what she did or didn’t say to him and that sends a prickling lance of fear through her; the possibility of being known by him, _really_ known, not in the way their bodies seem to drift toward each other so indecently but in the dredging up of those parts of her life she’s tried to bury deep in the darkest parts of herself. The things she knows he wants more than anything. 

“Is it really so hard for you to believe that you were put here for a reason? That you might have a purpose beyond blindly fumbling in the dark, trying - poorly, I might add - to do what you only _think_ might be right? I can help you, I _will_ help you, but she won’t have any part in that.”

He pauses, completely ignoring Diana’s demand in favor of smoothing his hand down over the junction of her neck and shoulder, making his way down beneath the collar of the shirt to feel his way across the _wrath_ he’d carved into her chest. “Your confession will be _all mine…”_

“So what?” she snaps, still tightly wound but with a little less venom in her voice. Tired, mostly, is what she sounds like. So unbelievably tired. “I was just a convenient excuse for you to get rid of her?” 

“No-”

_“You think you’re gonna replace her with me!?”_

_“No!”_ John repeats, voice thick with renewed poison as he flattens his palm against her sternum and yanks her back flush against his chest. “That is the absolute _last_ thing I want—do you even listen, or are you always too busy thinking up insults and snide little remarks? The things I care about in this miserable fucking world are few and far between...Rachel and her _methods_ were not among them.”

Diana shrugs pointedly and is surprised when he actually releases her without a fuss. She has to move away, give herself some breathing room even if it’s just a few steps. 

“Do you even understand the...the fucking implications of what you’re doing!? If you don’t go down in a hail of bullets, you’ll be in a maximum security prison for _the_ _rest of your fucking life,_ John! _If you’re lucky.”_

He lets out a haughty little laugh, shakes his head at her as if she’s a child. “Said the pot to the kettle, my dear. No, I’m going to be in my bunker safely underground with my family while the rest of the world _burns.”_

She grimaces, more flashes of her Bliss dreams circling in her head. It’s too much. This is all too much, it’s like a nightmare she can’t wake up from. There’s no way they can know. There’s no way their faith can be so goddamn ironclad. There’s no way Joseph’s predictions are anything more than the delusions of a sick and paranoid mind. 

That’s the way of it. It has to be. And so they’d played tricks with her mind and countless others, the Bliss and Jacob’s draconian conditioning experiments acting as the catalyst through which John and Joseph hoped to sow the seeds of their dogma. 

_“Johnny...you hear all that?”_

Diana blinks hard, ridding herself of the unwanted tears of frustration and exhaustion that have gathered in her eyes with quick, rough swipes of her palm. Her gaze drops to John’s radio as he hesitates for a moment before unclipping it from his belt and raising it. 

“Yes, Jacob—I heard,” he replies, keeping his eyes locked on her.

_“You got any idea what the fuck happened? Joseph say anything to you before he got on the horn?”_

“Not a word. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d wager our dear sister overplayed her hand; got tired of waiting and bum-rushed the jail. But those sinners cowering inside were ready—or, more likely, they just got very, very lucky.”

There’s a sound that comes back in response like a low scoff. _“Maybe. And where’s that precious little deputy of yours been this whole time?”_

The corner of John’s mouth tugs up. “I don’t know. If I had eyes on her all the time, that would take all the fun out of it. She may still be prowling around the Henbane. Are you sending a division down to hold Faith’s bunker, set things in order?” 

_“Yeah. First order of business is rooting out the goddamn vermin infesting that jail. We’re runnin’ out of time, John, and we can’t afford a fucking setback like this.”_

Diana watches John silently, the scowl she sports only deepening at his brother’s shameless cruelty. _Fucking asshole._

“And if they find her, and I asked you very nicely to have her sent to me...what would you say?”

A stretch of moments pass before Jacob replies. 

_“You already know the answer to that—are we gonna be able to trust_ you _to make the right choice if that little rat scurries back to the valley thinkin’ she’ll be safe?”_

She needs to find a way to contact them; warn them what’s coming somehow, if nothing else. If she can’t sneak out she can at least try to get her hands on a radio long enough to send out a message while he’s not looking.

“I will do what I have to,” John replies evenly. His gaze hasn’t wavered from hers; he’s keeping her reeled right into whatever strange, private little game they’re still playing. 

_“Let’s hope so. We’ll talk soon. Over.”_

John switches the radio off, sighing as he tosses it down onto the couch. Silence fills the empty space of the ranch for a brief time. “How are you feeling, deputy?” 

“Like shit. I’d like to lay down. _Alone.”_ She won’t play into his little game. Won’t ask why he’d said what he’d said. 

John offers her one of those beatific smiles. “I know you’re still unwell. But, I’m afraid I can’t leave you alone; that would be profoundly foolish”—he raises a hand, makes a little flourishing gesture with it—“tell you what...why don’t I start a shower? You can get cleaned up, get comfortable, and then-”

“And then I’ll invite you into bed with me? Show you how _thankful_ I am?” she butts in, unable to keep the poison-sweet sarcasm out of her tone. “So you can keep me busy while your brother _massacres my fucking friends?”_

John’s jaw visibly clenches at that. He straightens up and averts his eyes, scoffing roughly. “That’s not—first of all, those people are not your _friends._ They are nothing but a bunch of country bumpkins who’ve willfully blinded themselves so that they don’t have to see the _truth._ Those people don’t understand you, they don’t _care_ —not like I do,” he mutters, turning his gaze on her once more.

Diana makes an enraged sound and bows her head, pinching the bridge of her nose in helpless frustration. She throws her hand out, leveling an indignant glare up at him. “Fuck’s sake—do you really believe all the bullshit that comes outta your mouth, or do you just like to hear yourself talk _that much?”_

_“I am the one who sees you!”_ he seethes, stalking forward and jabbing his finger against the jagged scars on her chest. _“Wrath!_ I see it, plain as day—I recognize it because it lives in me too! You think I keep talking because I _like the sound!?_ I do it because _you refuse to fucking listen!”_

There it is, that mercurial anger, rearing its head again with a sharper sense of urgency. “You think I’m vain, egotistical!? Fucking self-righteous!? I’ve said it time and again—you look but you don’t really see! _I know what I am!_ And I am so close to knowing what you are—I am so fucking close I can almost _taste it.”_

Diana’s eyes widen as he crowds into her space again, looming, puffing himself up. A shudder sweeps through her unexpectedly as she takes yet another step back. “You’re out of your fucking mind-”

John barks out a rueful little laugh, shaking his head. He hovers his finger over her chest, over her sin, over her heart. “You think so? You think I got to where I am because I’m _crazy?”_

He grins down at her, showing his teeth, and she _hates it_ when he smiles like that. 

“You keep calling them your friends, but I don’t think that’s really what they are—because you don’t let yourself get close to people. No...no, what you feel is _beholden_ to them,” he begins ranting decisively, picking up steam. “Do you think you’re giving yourself purpose, trying to help them in their misguided little coup? Do you think you’re making up for something? Do you think you can finally change, finally be better, finally _fix_ whatever it was inside of you that got broken!?” 

_“Fuck you,”_ Diana spits, curling her lip. 

She doesn’t need to be psychoanalyzed by someone like him, even if he’s right; especially if he’s right. 

“Was it that fire that made you so wretched? Were you building those walls up around yourself - erecting your little fortress brick by brick - while the walls of your mother’s house and all that was left of your childhood burnt away? Or was it compounded by something else? Is there more to our heroine’s sad tale? Who else did you let down— _who else couldn’t you save, deputy?”_

_“Shut the fuck up-!”_

_“Who’s Lily?”_ he hisses, raising his voice, crowding even closer. 

_“You don’t fucking say her name!”_ Diana barks, the tenuous thread holding her emotions in check finally snapping. “You got all my goddamn files, _but you don’t get to have her, do you fucking hear me!?”_

John reaches up and snatches her wrists out of the air just as she lunges with fingers hooked into claws. “Oooh, that one struck a nerve! So defensive, showing me those little teeth of yours! So let me guess, because the picture’s coming together so beautifully now, and don’t forget, _I’m crazy,_ so do let me know if I’m wrong-”

_“I will fucking kill you!”_ she shrieks, wrenching against his grip, and she’s shaking again and so weak it takes barely _any_ exertion for him to use her own momentum against her. 

He yanks her hands down hard and twists her around so that her back is pressed against his chest once more, caging her in with one arm wrapping securely around her middle. “Oh, I was going to say best friend in all the world, but judging by your reaction I think that’s an _understatement_ —she was much more than that, wasn’t she?” 

A hoarse, guttural shriek escapes her as she throws her weight forward, forcing John to hold her up and haul her back lest she fling herself down to the polished floor. 

He shushes Diana, tightening his grip around her, rocking her back and forth as he nests his chin right up against her ear. “Some tragedy struck - something you couldn’t stop - and you lost her, didn’t you? And you never let go of that grief—you let your guilt _fester and rot_ inside you-”

_“Shut—up-!”_ she sobs through gritted teeth, wrenching herself again - fruitlessly - with all the poise of a rag doll. 

_“-until it became wrath, and you let it fill you up, you let it swallow you whole! You let your despair consume you!”_

_“What the fuck do you want from me-!?”_

_“I want you to let it out!_ This is what you need, Diana, this is _catharsis_ I am offering you! I am the one who can help you fix it, don’t you see that!?” he exclaims, jerking her backwards to put emphasis on his words.

A desperate cry escapes her as she hangs her head. She can’t keep it bottled up, can’t do anything other than exactly what he wants; not when he’s ripped and torn at all her seams with his teeth, pulled her apart and danced a little fucking jig on her bloody entrails. 

Her head hurts so bad she thinks she might pass out but the suffocating bubble of grief that’s welled up inside Diana’s chest is the more pressing matter; great, gasping sobs rack her frame as she becomes so much dead weight in his arms, unable to force shut the wound he’s so maliciously opened up. 

_“I fucking loved her!”_ she wails, broken, unable to see through her tears as he readjusts and lowers her to her knees on the hardwood floor. She sobs again and hunches down over her elbows, clenching her fists as a wave of sickly fever-heat wells up through her. _“And fuck you if you call that a sin, do you fucking hear me-!?”_

John sits on his own knees just beside her, hovering, half-holding her still. “You really haven’t learned very much about me, then, deputy. The loving of another person on this miserable fucking rock is never a sin - my brother showed me that - but what you allowed it to _become?_ This _cancer_ that’s eating you alive!?”

She makes a stifled, miserable sound against the floor, pressing her forehead against the cool wood in some attempt at alleviating the fetid heat that always accompanies crying so hard. 

“Suffering is the great equalizer; it makes martyrs of us all in the eyes of God. I told you you would swim across an ocean of pain, but if I can save you—then maybe we’ll both have a place in Eden-”

Diana does not respond to that, though the statement undeniably rings odd. She wants to be done exchanging words, done feeling the overwhelming exhaustion and agony this place and these people have brought upon her.

She does not know _how_ to be saved; how to cut out the malicious thing that wormed its way inside her. 

John lets her wallow in her misery for a few blessed minutes, the only sounds in the ranch being her hiccuping sobs and the few times she has to suck back all the wet mucus that’s gathered up in her sinuses. Undeniably unattractive, and how fucking pathetic it is that _that’s_ a thought which crosses her mind in the midst of all of it. 

It’s almost a grounding thought, in a way; coming back around that mountain of grief to criticize herself for something she _can_ try and control. Her breathing starts to even out, diaphragm spasming a little less with each deep inhale. 

“If you will just agree to give me a real confession,” he mutters, quiet now, smoothing a warm palm over her back, “If you will be open and honest with me, we can begin the real work. Let me mark you with your sloth, Diana, let me help you atone. You don’t have to do any of it alone, I won’t let you—but you _will_ have to do it.” 

She winces against the feeling of whiplash caused by his sudden shift back to that unique brand of sinister tenderness; fills her lungs with another steadying breath. “You should have just left me...”

John catches the implication that goes unsaid and furrows his brows, moving both hands to her biceps to coax her up from the floor. “I _shouldn’t_ have, and I _won’t,”_ he responds pointedly. “I am _never_ going to do that to you, Diana. I’m—all I’m asking is that you take a chance and trust me.”

She allows John to straighten her up, plants her palms down on her thighs because she’s still shaking so badly. “I don’t think...I’m capable of that,” she utters hoarsely, staring blankly down at the floor between her legs.

“You’re going to have to try...if you want those friends of yours to have any chance of surviving.”


	34. Boom Boom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna shoot you down  
>  Right off 'a your feet  
>  Until you're home with me
> 
> Put you in my house  
>  Boom, boom, boom, boom  
>  I love the way you walk  
>  Especially how you talk
> 
> 'Cause when you whisper in my ear  
>  And say "Johnny I love you"  
>  I love that talk
> 
> -Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Boom Boom

Diana rolls over onto her side, readjusting herself and shoving an arm in beneath her pillow. 

_John’s pillow._

She’d finally, numbly agreed to take another Valium and have a shower when the weight of physical and emotional exhaustion became almost crushing. And he’d locked her in here after that; some kind of a compromise for her wanting to sulk— _alone_. Her eyes had immediately searched for the ham radio she’d seen on his desk and only landed upon empty space. He’d obviously had it removed from his bedroom before they’d arrived. 

She’s not sure how long it’s been or what he’s been doing in the meantime. Time feels frayed, disjointed. It could have been one hour or several already for all she knows. John could have been plotting with his brother this whole time; her friends could all be dead.

_You keep calling them your friends._

Diana still can’t escape him, even when he’s not in the room with her. His words have permeated her thoughts, settling and sinking roots.

_He’s right, he’s right, he’s always right._

_No. No, Jess is your friend. Grace, too. They’ve seen you, more of you than you ever wanted to show. And they still care._

But would they if circumstances were different? Maybe. Maybe not. 

They certainly won’t if they ever find out about this fucking _entanglement_ she’s gotten herself into. 

_Let it out. This is catharsis I am offering you._

_I am the one who sees you._

She lets out a miserable growl, rolling back over and yanking the pillow out from beneath her head so that she can smother it over her face. All she wants is to be able to drift into unconsciousness. Far away from thinking about how fucking helpless she is; about all those people at the jail, about John, about Liliana.

_She’d be so disappointed in you._

The prevailing ambient thought creeping in and out of all the darkest corners of her mind keeps telling her to _get up._ Get up and search his desk for a gun, a letter opener or an exacto knife, even a fucking pen would do. 

Anything to make it all disappear. 

And here she thought she was all cried out; dried to the bone, empty of all but dust. She feels tears gathering in her eyes again, though, at the thought. 

_A good way to let everyone down one last time._

The thing is, the Resistance doesn’t need her, they never did. She causes more problems for them than she solves. How many times has she needed rescuing? How many lives has she put at risk, how much more blood can she stain her hands with? 

_Enough will be enough when you’re so fucking deep in it you’re_ choking _. Better to stop it before it gets worse._

Better. It would be better. 

Diana removes the pillow from over her face. 

She sits up mechanically, the heavy blanket pooling around her waist before she pushes it aside. 

_There’s no way to beat them; you take an inch and they take back a mile. They have an army, a goddamn fanatical one. If you’re gone—maybe these fucks will go easy on everyone else. Maybe there won’t be any more Hollys or Pratts or Burkes. All you did was make it worse for them._

She’s across the room before she even registers the movement of her own body, like she’s been forcibly evicted from it. Watching like a ghost from the corner as nothing useful stands out on top of the desk, so the woman with all the bruises and deep, dark bags beneath her eyes - who’s too skinny to be of any use in a fight and too bloodthirsty to be of use anywhere else - reaches for the nearest drawer and yanks it open to rummage inside. 

_John said there was a chance you could save them._

She huffs air out through her nose, making an irritated sound at her own stupid, lackluster sense of self-preservation. 

_John Seed is a fucking lunatic._

The first drawer contains nothing but manila folders and paperwork, and once she’s done searching to the bottom she slams it shut and continues on to the one below.

_Joseph wanted you. He thinks he saw you in some fucked up prophecy, but when he tried to push you it became pretty fucking clear he couldn’t deal with being pushed back. He wanted you dead. That’s an edge._

“That’s fucking suicide,” she mutters, arguing with herself now, yanking a small ziplock bag from the drawer. She barely registers the stuff, tossing it aside in favor of pawing through more stationary - planners, it looks like - before she stops dead. 

_And what are you planning on doing right now?_

“Fuck.” 

She stands there for a few fraught moments before pulling a rolling chair out from the desk, easing herself down into the seat slowly - as if her own body is some wild animal she’s trying not to spook - only noticing her hands are shaking again when she buries her face into them.

_“Fffffuck.”_

_Just keep it together. Just a little longer. Long enough to hear what the fuck he has to say._

There’s a rattling sound from across the room behind her; the door being unlocked and then opened. There’s nothing else from him at first, and she briefly wonders if John’s actually trying to be quiet in case she’s sleeping.

“Ah,” he exclaims after a moment, presumably when he notices she’s not in his bed, “what are we up to over there, deputy? Hope you aren’t rummaging through my personal belongings looking for a _murder weapon,”_ he adds a little too airily, the volume of his voice indicating his approach.

He stops beside her and places a tray down on the desk before turning and leaning against the edge so that he can look down at her.

“I’ll leave you in suspense over which one of us I was planning on murdering,” she offers up numbly, reaching out to slam the drawer shut like punctuation on the end of her sentence.

John’s eyes narrow. He examines her for a moment, crossing his arms over his chest, gaze moving briefly to the baggie on the floor before focusing back on her. 

_“Eat._ You’ll feel better once you do,” he says pointedly, leaning over just enough so that he can remove the lid from a steaming container of soup. “And then perhaps we can try our hand at having a _civilized_ conversation.” 

Diana hates the way her stomach immediately starts growling at the smell. She closes her eyes briefly, slumping back against the chair. “I’m not gonna do shit until you tell me what you meant—about having a chance at saving them.” 

John sighs. “Every single thing is like pulling teeth with you, isn’t it?”

She looks up; levels him with a hard, expectant glare. 

_“Fine._ The first thing you should know is that my brother has a very simple rule—if you’re not with us, you’re against us; _you’re lost._ However, in the eyes of Eden’s Gate, killing them now is standard procedure since Joseph began the Reaping. It’s still far kinder than to let them suffer the collapse—even _if_ he believes they killed Rachel.”

“So?” 

_“So_ —we both know I’ve already broken the Father’s rules more than once, and, frankly, I don’t care what happens to those _friends_ of yours. You want them alive to suffer when God’s righteous fury comes to cleanse them from the earth? Fine.”

He shifts and leans forward, encroaching on her space that much more. “If you will just agree to settle the fuck down and”—he shrugs then—“stop _fighting_ me. _Think_ about things—about what I’m offering you. About what I’ve risked already trying to keep you safe. Just have a chat with me—a real one. And I’ll let you put out a call to them.” 

Diana stares up at him, weighing his words and the manner in which she might respond to them. 

He picks up the spoon sat beside the bowl, holding it out to her. “Have you ever seen the film _Silence of the Lambs?”_

Her brows knit. She reaches out to take the utensil, eyeing him warily. “I thought you didn’t consume any kind of _media,”_ she responds carefully, scooting the chair closer to the soup—and, by extension, to John. “Or is that another rule you broke?” 

John scoffs. “I was in the habit of consuming _plenty_ of things before Joseph found me. Media included. Look, we’re running out of time and I’m willing to sweeten the deal. The reason I mention it’s in reference to the little game they play— _quid pro quo_. If you are honest and open with me, I will offer you the same courtesy. Ask me anything. I know you must be curious.” 

_“Tch,”_ Diana tuts noncommittally. She scoots the chair around so that she’s parallel with the desk, making it so her legs are between the two of them. Not much extra space, considering he’s still leaning there like a fucking gargoyle, but it’s something. “Not really.”

She leans in over the tray, dunks the spoon into the soup and pulls up some lengths of noodle and some celery and a chunk of what appears to be chicken or turkey. 

Her response takes him off guard. Diana notices the way he stiffens and feels a spiteful little thrill. It’s a lie, of course, but at this point she requires the small satisfaction of feigning disinterest. It makes her feel fractionally better, the quick little jab at his ego; distracts her from her own self-destructiveness in a backwards kind of way.

“Do you want the opportunity to warn them or _not?_ I don’t think I’m asking for very much, considering all I’ve done for you already.”

“Fucking- _Christ_ — _yes,_ okay? Yes, I want to be able to talk to them,” she bites out, angrily cutting her gaze away from the soup to look up at him again. “Can you stop trying to gaslight me for two fucking seconds!? It’s not gonna work and it makes you look like _even more_ of an asshole.”

John angles his head, leveling her with a satisfied little smile. He’ll take the insult - what’s one more, anyway, really - because he’s got her right where he wants her. Of course, _ideally,_ she’d be begging him on hands and knees to be saved, spilling her secrets freely and willingly and _thanking_ him for his generosity all the while.

“Excellent. Eat the soup; it’s fresh from dinner at the compound, locally sourced, free range, et cetera, et cetera—and then I’ll give you your call.” 

He pushes off from the desk, finally giving her back her space, idling around behind her as he makes his way to retrieve the bag she’d tossed to the floor. 

Diana huffs out a sigh, staring petulantly at the wall for a few more beats before she finally focuses her attention back on the meal he brought. It smells hearty and salty and it’s like somehow he _knew_ she always craves sodium whenever she’s suffering a hangover. 

_Fuck,_ she thinks, before blowing on a spoonful and tasting it. 

“My brother’s patrols are going to sweep every single corner of the Henbane...when you speak to them, I’d suggest you tell them to reconvene in Fall’s End.” 

Diana pauses with a chunk of buttered bread half-torn between her fingers, has to lower it and turn awkwardly in the chair to face him. 

“Oh yeah?” she asks with no small amount of suspicion, watching as he pinches the fingers of one bandaged hand idly over the length of the little bag. In all honesty, the powdery substance inside looks like coke and she isn’t surprised in the slightest. 

“So you can be the _golden boy_ who caught the deputy _and_ her little sinner army all in one go?” she adds pointedly, shifting her gaze back up to meet his.

John can’t seem to help looking smug. “No. I’m simply trying to be... _magnanimous_. The incompetent fools I left in charge already let it be taken back; it’s not a trap or an ambush. I’m willing to offer them safe passage. _If_ they move soon.” 

_“Why?”_

John cocks an eyebrow as he comes up beside her again. He puts a foot up on the edge of the chair and pushes her just far enough out of his way so that he can get to the drawer she’d been digging in before. “Is that one of your official questions, deputy? The ones you’re _not really_ interested in asking-?” 

“Fuck you,” comes the customary retort as she spins around to reorient herself and keep her eyes on him. 

John smirks as he tosses the bag back into its place in the drawer. “Isn’t it obvious? _For you._ Because I know you and your friends are out of options. Because we are fighting a holy war that my brothers and I are destined to win.”

He pauses for a moment, lingering again. “Because I want you to be with me, when that time comes…”

Diana considers this for a moment. She wants to bite out something about how fucking deluded he is, about how effortlessly cruel he’d been only a short time ago, but she can’t rule out the offer. If it’s true - it’s something she can’t ignore or take for granted, despite every one of her instincts warning against it. 

“Just so I’ve got this perfectly clear...you’re saying you’ll let them go. You’ll let them _leave.”_

“Yes.” 

She wets her lips. The taste of the broth lingers there, registering somewhere in her brain to remind her that she’s still very hungry. 

“Okay,” she eventually says, quiet; overpowered. 

What choice does she have, really, but to trust him? 

“Good. Now eat.”

Finally, _finally,_ she does as he says. 

Like he’s only just now noticing how dark it is, John leaves the vicinity of the desk to make his way over to the windows, sliding the heavy curtains aside to let in the last of the evening’s light for her to eat by. 

He leaves her in relative peace for a time, busying himself with tidying up the bed. But he can’t let it lie for long. He’s finally punched a sizable hole through her armor and instinct needles at him to _keep pushing._

“So. Lily…?”

_“Her name was Liliana.”_

John finishes straightening the comforter, turns and watches the deputy; she’s frozen where she sits, half hunched over his desk. She doesn’t say anything else after this, so he plunges forward. 

“Will you tell me what happened?” 

A heavy sigh escapes her. She shifts in the chair, remains silent for a while longer as if she has to work up to it. 

He wonders how long it’s been since she’s spoken to anyone about it in more than a superficial capacity; if her little friends know about it. 

“Met her in Cascade County. She got caught, um...selling drugs. The kinda shit no sixteen year old should be selling.” Diana pauses, not bothering to turn around and face him, only poking the spoon down into the bowl lacklusterly. “Her family was dirt fucking poor, she was just trying to bring in any money she could. But she was... _good_. She...she made me feel like I could be good…”

The corner of John’s mouth ticks up at the admission, though she can’t see it. “And you had a, what?” he asks quietly, a little airily, unable to stop himself from provoking the topic now that she’s started talking. “A secret little whirlwind romance?” 

“We were teenagers—we were... _obsessed_ with each other. She, uh...she turned eighteen six months before I did. Got out, went to a halfway house, got a job. Was doin’ really fucking good. Came to visit me every week,” Diana continues haltingly, her voice thick and fracturing with emotion. “She brought me this...huge bouquet of roses, after I finished my G.E.D. Told me how _proud_ she was. And...and then one week she just...didn’t show. Never called, never left a message...”

She clears her throat, pausing again. “I was in the common room, happened to see it on the news a few days later. She got killed in a––a _mugging_...motherfucker stabbed her and left her in an alley to bleed out.”

Her fists flex, opening and closing restlessly atop the chair’s armrests. 

John approaches, keenly watching for any signs of another breakdown but the second round of Valium seems to be doing its job. There’s so much he wants to say, so many more questions he wants to ask; he wants to dig into this wound, widen it, make it bleed. He wants to know every gory detail of the pain that shaped her, carve out a little place in his mind where he can covet the knowledge.

But all things in moderation. He’s only just gotten her back, only just gotten her _talking._ And he knows enough now to be aware of her desire to martyr herself for those people she feels beholden to. 

She’ll keep talking, though, keep peeling back her own layers strip by bloody strip as long as she also feels beholden to _him._

“They wouldn’t even let me out to go to her fucking funeral…”

John reaches out, brushes his fingertips lightly across her shoulder as he comes up beside her.

Yes, no wonder it filled her with so much rage, exacerbated whatever infantile ugliness had already been growing inside her. In his experience, closure is a powerful tool; many of their faithful had been lacking it in some shape or form when the Project took them in. Something he himself had been sorely lacking until his serendipitous reunion with his brothers all those years ago. 

Diana tenses beneath his touch, gentle as he’s tried to make it. So much like a wild animal it makes his pulse quicken to think of finally humbling her, of gaining her submission. His hand moves of its own accord, fists into the hair at the back of her head that still hasn’t quite dried all the way. 

He drinks in the way she exposes her throat, head tipping back at his insistence; watches the tendons flex under the skin as she swallows apprehensively. Catches the shine of tears in the corners of those dull sea-green eyes. And then he bends down and kisses her roughly without waiting for any indication of permission, because it’s what he wants and because he _sees_ her. 

_“Yes,”_ he breathes against her lips, tightening his grip. _“There’s that courage. I knew you had it in you, my divine, repugnant little wrath._ How does it feel, to finally expose yourself? Didn’t I tell you you wouldn’t be able to hide anymore?” 

Something hardens in Diana’s eyes as she cuts her gaze up to meet his, baring her teeth. The haze of painful memories gone, replaced with that familiar impudence he finds so infuriatingly alluring. 

_“Give me...my fucking call,”_ she grits out, “or I’ll show you what _else_ I remember from _Silence of the Lambs.”_

John grunts, an amused smile playing on his mouth even as images of prison guards with their faces chewed open flit through his mind. “Yes—of course.” 

He finally releases her, shifting forward to lean over and reach into that drawer he’d left open. 

“I’d say you’ve earned it,” he mutters absently, pleasantly, as he retrieves one of the planners.

Pacing away a few steps, he flips open the little book and rifles through the pages before finding the one he’s looking for. A list of important phone numbers he’d written out a number of years ago, the County Jail being one of them. John folds back the cover and tosses the open booklet into her lap. 

Diana blinks, anger and indignation flaring up after she gets a good look at what’s written there. “The fuck is this? I’m not stupid, I know you cut all the phone lines-”

John shakes his head, motioning for her to get up. “Not all—we made sure to retain connections to a few key locations. The jail happens to be one of them. Using the radio’s far too risky.” 

Diana knits her brows, the anger morphing, grudgingly, into a look more reminiscent of cautiousness. She grabs up the little book and stands, takes a step back as he shifts forward once more. 

“Finished?” he asks innocently enough, motioning down at the tray. 

Diana sniffles, sullenly cutting her gaze away and turning as she reaches up to wipe at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I guess.”

. . .

They descend from the second floor down the staircase. John stops short, though, when they emerge into the hallway that leads to the kitchen at one end and the living room at the other. “The phone is out in the main room, on the table. Can I trust you to _behave_ for a few minutes while I clean up?” 

She watches him raise the tray pointedly, as if he’s being ever so gracious taking it upon himself to do her dishes. 

_I’m gonna punch him in the mouth._

“So...you _don’t_ want me to tell them I’ve been drugged, psychologically and emotionally tortured and held here against my will?” she replies caustically.

John cocks an eyebrow. “Tell them whatever you want. But I’ll reiterate—the likelihood of their survival depends _heavily_ on certain details you choose to leave out. _My dear.”_

“The jail’s gotta have caller I.D., they’re gonna know as soon as it rings-”

“You think I’d have my phone number _listed?”_

Diana’s mouth hinges shut at that. She waits for him to laugh in her face, tear her down just that much further for being a fucking idiot—but he doesn’t. 

“Make your call, deputy. If you care so much, stop wasting this time I’m giving you.” 

Her lip curls as he turns and walks away toward the kitchen without another word. The idea of bolting straight out the back door crosses her mind but she knows she wouldn’t make it very far. John may not let his followers wander around inside while he’s at home but she has absolutely no doubt they’re posted at every exit.

Diana has no trouble finding the telephone because the light’s blinking on the answering machine. She approaches, casting a quick glance back at the entrance to the hall. She didn’t bother trying to close the heavy double doors when she came through and now the deputy can hear the faint sound of dishes rattling at the other end of the house, like he’s out there fucking with the dishwasher. 

So naturally she reaches out and presses the PLAY button. 

_“After all the atonements, all the confessions, all you’ve done for me and Eden’s Gate...it’s not enough, is it, John?”_

She doesn’t know what she expected to hear. Something relating to strategies or supply distribution, some kind of official business related to the project—something that could be _helpful._ Not whatever this is. 

_Even Joseph thinks he’s fucking lost it._

_“You are destined to be slain by your own sin. It will come back around in a new form—it’s only a matter of when. I’ve seen you die young, I’ve seen you die old; the difference between the two outcomes is how much love you let into your heart.”_

An undesirable twinge of guilt stabs at her. Even after John just pried out part of her story she’d never intended on sharing, this feels like too intimate a thing to be listening in on. Like she’s inadvertently gotten too close, like the more she learns about him and the inner workings of his family the more likely she is to become trapped by it. Bound to it, to him, to this insane prophecy they’re convinced she’s somehow a part of. 

Diana reaches out and jabs the STOP button just as Joseph starts to say ‘I love you,’ swiping up the receiver in one shaky hand and glancing at John’s planner to get the number she needs to dial. She can’t take the time to process everything she just heard. Doesn’t even know that she wants to. 

She chews her lip as it rings and rings, nine or ten times before she almost hangs up to try again. 

_“Sheriff Earl Whitehorse, Hope County P.D.”_

Then, carefully, _“state your business.”_

_“Earl,”_ she breathes out quickly, eyes darting back to the hallway, “Earl, it’s me, Diana—Deputy Baker-”

_“Jesus Christ, Baker, where the hell are you!? Are you hurt?”_

“I—” Diana blinks, and all of a sudden she can’t seem to form the words she needs to say. 

_“Talk to me, kid. We’ve had search parties out lookin’ for you for two goddamn days-”_

“I-I’m okay, listen, I’m okay—got Blissed to fuckin’ hell and back, but-”

_“Where are you?”_

“Listen, I’m safe - I think - but you need to get the fuck out of that jail, okay-”

_“Rook, somebody out here killed Faith Seed, you know anything about-”_

_“I know, Earl, just fuckin’ listen to me for a second_ —that’s why you have to leave!” Diana flings the little planner down on the table, frustrated at being interrupted by the old man. “They’re gonna be coming for you, you have to get everyone out of that fucking jail!”

_“I—”_

There’s a pregnant pause on the other end of the line and then a heavy breath and she can practically see him pushing his fingers up under his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. He’d done it enough in their short time together before the shit hit the fan that it’s one of the few mannerisms she can easily conjure up. 

_“Okay...alright...well, uh, Mary May and the Pastor and a handful of others were able to chase John’s people out of Fall’s End-”_

So he _was_ telling the truth. 

“Yes, _good,_ okay—call up anybody who’s still out looking for me or patrolling or whatever, tell them to get the fuck out of the Henbane. I think Jacob’s sending in, like...fucking kill crews or something-”

_“Will you tell me what the hell’s goin’ on? Where are you, how’d you know about all of this?”_

Her chest tightens up. 

_Tell him. You have to tell him._

“I, uh…” She squeezes her eyes shut. 

_Fuck fuck fuck._

“I’m safe for now, okay...just—just head for Fall’s End. I’ll be in touch, I’ll...I’ll meet up with you soon.” 

_“Baker, hold on—wait a second-!”_

She jabs the END button with her thumb, exhaling raggedly and staring down at the receiver in her hand.

“Ohh, well done. Except that _pesky_ little bit at the end…”

She whips her head around to see John approaching from the doorway, an easy smirk spread on his face. 

He stops just beside her, leisurely tucking his hands into his pockets as he gives Diana a quick once-over. Appraising. But _Pleased._

“I need to make _sure,”_ she hisses at him, pointing a finger vaguely at the wall. “Those people aren’t gonna abandon their home just because I put out one cryptic fucking phone call! I need to be able to talk to them. _In person.”_

“I don’t recall that being a part of the agreement-”

Diana scoffs violently. “Your definition of an agreement is so _unbelievably_ fucking troubling, I don’t even have the ingenuity to debate it with you right now-”

“For the best, considering it’s a debate you’d never win,” he cuts in, tilting his head in that condescending way he has. “Hurling slurs and insults is no substitute for a compelling - or even coherent - argument, no matter how _practiced_ you might be at it…” 

“Slurs and insults are the only things I have left you _stupid fucking dick! I gave you what you wanted!”_

“Mm,” he hums through a thin smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling just so. _“Quid pro quo,_ my dear. You want to see those people? I want _more.”_


End file.
